


Nothing Left To Be Desired

by ScooterSister



Series: Delight In Dystopia [3]
Category: Grand Theft Auto V
Genre: Brother-Sister Relationships, Corruption, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Humor, Kidnapping, Love, Mild Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2015-02-02
Packaged: 2018-03-03 00:46:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 62,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2832026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScooterSister/pseuds/ScooterSister
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part III of Delight In Dystopia.<br/>Louise what's-her-name is pulled back into the unholy trinity's orbit yet again, but this time, she is ingratiated even further than before, much to everyone's chagrin. What oh what will become of them?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Howdy. I hope you like this. It should be obvious but this is part 3 of a series, so if you haven't read the first two installments you will be lost most likely. Thanks for reading :)  
> *I do not own any of the Grand Theft Auto V characters. They belong to Rockstar.

Franklin walked out of Michael's house on a fine, smogless L.S. afternoon. It was a beautiful motherfuckin' day and their latest plans were shaping up to be well-laid, so well-laid that they were making everyone giddy as shit; making Franklin notice a sunny day in the near-perpetually sunny city that had always been his home.

The four of them, Franklin, Michael, Trevor, and Lester had all been itchy in the months past, not one of them content to simply sit back and enjoy their bounty from the Union Depository job. They were getting bored. Being errand boys for the businesses of which they were supposed to be the sole-proprietors did nothing to sate their mutually-felt lust for their lives of crime. Not to mention how much the bullshit that Franklin deal with made him think of how many times he'd been fucked over and ripped off. He'd thought that those days had been behind him but...

Now they had a job. No, none of them needed the money per se and they were all playing fast and loose with the stupid luck that they had enjoyed up to this point, but fuck it. They weren't made of stone and they needed to do something. Michael wanted some extra dough to sink into a studio venture, Trevor wanted a new airfield from which he could kick start a new phase of international arms trading, and Franklin was thinking that it was high time he invested in a yacht or some shit. At least, those were their thin justifications for doing what they were thinking about doing. Save for Trevor, who made no bones about the fact that he also just wanted to fuck some shit up with his running buddies.

Trevor emerged a moment later and strode over to where Franklin stood at his car. He looked much more like the Trevor that Franklin had met when he'd first gotten serious. Deranged as fuck and full of his own terrifying brand of swagger. That's not to say that he hadn't softened considerably, but he was still a crazy, lecherous human storm and he was finally back in his element.

“Frank, Frank, Frank, you weren't going to peel out of here without a proper goodbye now were ya? We spend an hour together and you think you can leave me here like this? No niceties, no small talk? That hurts, man,” he said touching his chest.

“Psh. Man, when the fuck we ever been that cordial? Never, that's fuckin' when.”

Trevor ceded the point with a raise of his eyebrows before he smiled and rubbed his hands together.

“It's good to have the old gang back, huh? Fuckin' wheels are turning, brother, things are happening.”

Franklin smiled despite himself. He didn't know what was more pathetic, that the pack of them were planning on robbing a small credit union out in the sticks for the fuck of it or that it was turning them into a bunch of flustered fuckin' children.

“Yeah, I hear ya, man."

 “I can't fucking believe Townley let us use his house to plan this thing. Dude is getting a little bit too ballsy on the end of that tight leash.”

“Naw, man, he's gettin' bored. Motherfucker needs some marital strife to keep him on his toes.”

Trevor chuckled. “You are wise beyond your years, young Franklin,” he said leaning against the car.

Franklin shifted on his feet and looked at Trevor.

“Yo, man, you meant what you said in there, right? This thing's gonna be quick and clean, no dead bodies.”

Trevor guffawed and pushed off of the car.

“Hey man, it's like anything else? Nobody gets in our fuckin' way, no need for the use of deadly force...”

“You soundin' a little too much like a fuckin' cop right now.”

“Yeah, fuck you too,” Trevor muttered, heading for his own vehicle now.

“Ay! We ain't needin' to mow motherfuckers down to get a job done, man. Quick, clean!” he called to Trevor's back.

Trevor responded by spinning around and grabbing his crotch before climbing into his Canis and driving away.

 _Fuck._ Franklin climbed into his car and starting driving toward home and it wasn't five minutes before he looked down at his ringing phone to see that Michael had forgotten something.

“'Sup, man, miss me already?”

_“Hey. I forgot to mention something...”_

“Shit. What now?”

_“Uh, well...That quaint little town in the sticks? It's uh...”_

“What?” Michael was quiet for a minute.

_“They're shootin' a movie there, so...”_

Franklin sighed.

“So we ain't just gonna be dodgin' the fuckin' one time but also a town full of industry fools, huh? Fuckin' brilliant, man, reall _y.”_

_“Ah, come on, it ain't that bad. Hell, it adds a few more faces in the crowd and if we figure out where they're shooting, we might be able to use it to our advantage. More faces in the crowd might make it that much easier to make a clean getaway. Plus, counter-check sales go way up when there's in influx of people. It's a Fleeca branch, too. Look at it as an opportunity.”_

“Fuck, I remember what happened last time you told me that, man...”

_“This is different, Frank.”_

“Yeah, whatever. I hope you're right man.”

Franklin hung up and laughed, shaking his head. If second thoughts had been his thing, he might have given some pause now, but he didn't feel like wrestling down any doubts. Things were going smooth, finally. No damsels in distress, no de facto orders of protection to keep him and his away from said damsels. Just him and his crew. Silky fuckin' smooth.

 

...............................

 

Michael tossed his phone between his hands as he walked through his house wearing a shit-eating grin. The morning had gone so well that he hadn't even been craving whiskey and had gladly stuck to the _no drinking before noon_ clause of his contract. It was well after one o'clock now, though, so it was high time for a celebratory drink.

Amanda walked in as he was fixing his drink, holding a couple of shopping bags. Michael was in too fine a mood to jab her for her shopping habits today.

“Hey, babe,” Amanda chirped. “Hello, gorgeous,” he crooned back at her.

She shot him a crooked, tentative smile as she looked at him.

"How are you?” she asked him.

“Fuckin' fantastic, babe.”

“Uh huh,” she said eyeing him suspiciously.

She gestured at her Didier Sachs shopping bag.

“So, you don't have anything snarky to say about my little outing?”

“Not a thing,” he said walking up to her and kissing her on the cheek.

“I haven't seen you in this good a mood in months, Michael.”

He shrugged.

“It's a good day.”

Amanda narrowed her eyes at him.

“Are you up to something?”

Michael's eyes got big.

“No!”

Amanda stuck her finger in his face.

“The last time I saw you this chipper was the week before I found you banging a stripper, Michael,” she spat.

Michael rolled his eyes and dropped his shoulders.

“So help me, Michael, if you're fucking around again-”

Michael seized his wife by the shoulders and looked her in the eye.

“I don't have a side-piece, Amanda. You're it for me, baby. I swear to fuck I haven't done anything to break the marriage contract.”

“Yet,” she spat.

“Oh for fuck sake, Amanda, can't a guy be in a good mood when his balls are full?”

Amanda pulled a disgusted face.

“You are _such_ a pig sometimes,” she said breaking away from him.

She walked toward the doorway.

“Hey,” Michael called after her.

She turned around to look at him.

“We really gonna undo over a year of progress because I'm in a good mood, Amanda?”

She crossed her arms.

“Perhaps. Unless you wanna tell me what's going on.”

Michael leaned against the kitchen counter.

“There's another film project that I'm attached to. We just need to secure the funding and once that's done, we can get things rolling. It's not like before where I came in late to the party. I get to see this one through from beginning to end!” he said with genuine excitement.

Amanda seemed to relax a little bit, dropping her arms to her sides, though she was still side-eyeing him.

“Besides that,” Michael started as he walked toward her. “I got my kids, my house, my _beautiful_ wife. Things are comin' up fuckin' roses, baby.”

Amanda was trying to suppress a smile, but Michael could feel her smiling into him as he pressed his mouth to hers. He broke the kiss and looked in her eyes.

“Life's a dream, baby.”

She smiled back at him.

“Life's a dream,” she repeated.

 

...........................

 

“I'm not sure you're understanding me, young lady,” Trevor said to his young, coquettish employee. “There is nothing wrong with _you_ , okay? You are a _fine_ specimen of feminine beauty, believe me.”

He gazed up and down the body of the blonde woman who was straddling him, a lovely tower of taut, sculpted musculature and silicone. Not exactly to his taste, but alluring nonetheless.

“But like I said, my cock isn't working right now. Hasn't worked in months, in fact. And as the owner of this establishment, I think it's important that I hold on to a scrap of my integrity, in the name of, uh, _professionalism.”_

Trevor was only half-lying about his cock. It worked sometimes. Christ, if he hadn't been able to beat it once in a while, he would have laid waste to the entire state of San Andreas. But his cock had become uncharacteristically choosy about when it wanted to function and even with a lovely, eager, half-naked stripper throwing herself at him, he already knew that he wouldn't be able to rise to the occasion.

God knows he'd tried a handful of times if only to get his mind off of the events of the past year. But he'd come to rely on a pretty specific and completely fond memory to get himself off. Unless he found something especially twisted on the internet. That did the job sometimes, too.

“Are you sure there's nothing I can do to make your cock change its mind, daddy?” the young woman cooed at him.

He thought he felt a tug in his pants just then, but quickly realized that it was a false start. He'd never been _daddy_ so much as he'd been _Uncle T._

“No, angel. Not a thing. You can, however, tell me if there's something that you wanted in the first place to bring you in here. Are the other ladies being nice to you? None of those brainless dickbags out there are getting too handsy, are they?”

The young woman rolled her eyes and shoved herself off of him.

“Nope. Just thought I could put a smile on your face is all.”

“Christ. Where were you when I first took this place over, huh?”

“Probably elementary school,” she shot at him sarcastically.

“Hey, I ain't been here that long, sweet cheeks!” he called to her back as she strode out of his office.

 _That's a damn shame,_ he thought as he rose from his chair.

He walked to the couch and pulled a stem from his pocket and gingerly loaded the thing before taking a deep hit. He felt his lips blistering over the piping hot tube, savoring the burn as he let the smoke fill his lungs. _Maybe my cock doesn't work 'cause of the speed. Er, no that's never been a problem before_ , he told himself.

_Ga-gung-ga-gung-ga-gung. Hard nipples, supernovas, beautiful itches._

He shouldn't have let that girl walk out of here. He would have liked someone to talk to now.

He hadn't been on the wagon per se, but he had cut back quite a bit. Now he was taking solace and also punishment in smoking up again, though it wasn't like it used to be. It used to motivate him to action but now, even when he smoked, he didn't know what the _action_ should be.

Nothing really made sense anymore, not like it used to. It used to be simple. His best friend was dead, killed in front of him. Brad was in prison. He'd gotten away, barely, and now made a pretty living by monopolizing the meth and weapon markets in Blaine County. His only attachments were to the people that he kept under his feet by plying them with amphetamines and intimidation. When he was tired, he found somewhere to sleep and when he was horny, he found someone to screw.

Everybody, including his friends, thought that he was a terrifying psychopath motivated by little more than the rush to be had from raising bedlam wherever he went. And then his best friend turned up alive and Brad turned up dead. He possessed all the control to be had over the meth and guns in Blaine County because there was no more fight left in his would-be competitors. And he'd met someone who seemed to believe that he was more than a nightmare personified, who wasn't half as scared as they should have been of him, who had made him feel a warmth that he didn't know was possible and he'd had to let that person go. And he did it. Selflessly. Yet again.

This next bank job was his ticket back to feeling alright again. Yeah, so he wanted to raise a little hell, no matter how unnecessary and reckless, what the fuck of it? He wanted to bond with his two amigos and which ever little piss ant they decided to drag along with them for moral support.

He wanted to feel the way he did when he was a kid up north, like he could leave whatever he wanted at his back and feel damn good doing it. With only a couple of attachments. Less fuss more fun. His body was buzzing and he couldn't sit still any longer. Time to _requisition_ some supplies. Light weight fire power and tear gas.

He walked out of the club and into the early dusk, his chemical companion making him feel as though there was an oil slick coating the world right now. He jumped into his truck and pulled out of the parking spot, noticing how prickly the breeze felt in his arm hair.

His first stop was the loading dock behind Ammunation's Downtown store. The truck would be there a little before eight. He would have went ahead and waltzed in whenever he felt like it but he had grown fond of this particular location. He parked the car and took a seat on the loading dock, swinging his legs and whistling as though he were waiting to meet a friend for coffee.

This wasn't exactly ideal. The sidewalk across from the loading dock was a busy thoroughfare and it was in pretty plain view, but fuck it. If he looked like he belonged there, maybe no one would be the wiser. His foot twitched as he chewed his fingernails, looking out toward the sidewalk.

He watched all the people schlepping up and down the block. Some strode, some skittered, some dragged, but they all looked the same to him. They all looked far away. He was biting his nail down to the quick, drawing blood from his fingers. He tasted his blood in his mouth, coppery and bitter. That's when he saw her.

She was different. She looked close enough to touch. She didn't belong there on that sidewalk with the rest of them. Black hair, round face, wide eyes, blue dress. He couldn't tell if she was looking at or through him but he could see her.

His throat started to feel tight. He tried to swallow but he couldn't and even if he had he felt like he might never salivate again. She turned and started walking again and there began a war with himself. Did he chase her or let her go? He didn't have a lot of time to think about it before the truck pulled up. The truck that he was waiting for.

It backed up slowly to the loading dock. Trevor shook off his haze, hopped off the loading dock and crouched down low, careful not to get caught in the side-view mirror. The engine idled for a minute before the driver got out. Trevor leaned against the truck and when he saw his shot, he clocked the guy, sending him stumbling back. He hit his head on the open driver's side door before he crumpled into a heap on the concrete.

The speed was working at peak capacity as Trevor hoisted the guy over his shoulder and shoved him back into the truck, shutting the door quickly before he made his way to the back of the trailer to get what he'd come for.

Ten short minutes later, Trevor had his small cache of lightweight weapons per Mota's request. He covered them with a tarp and got into the Canis, rejoining mainstream society on the street now. He was twitching, bouncing in his seat, practically, his thoughts racing.

He had had every intention of doing more than incapacitating that driver. He'd been craving it, wanting it up until he'd seen her. Or who he thought was her but could just have easily been a product of his drug-addled imagination. Or his fucking conscience. He didn't know, but that whole episode had knocked him off his cloud.

Things were going just fucking fine. I only think of her in the middle of the night. She never shows up in the daylight.

The city lights were making tracers, long tubes of light dancing around the way they would on an old camcorder.

He was tired, dead tired all of a sudden. All they needed now was a van. And then they could move on this and he could go back to normal.

 

...........................

 

_Cut. Cut. Cut. Cut._

Louise had never heard a word delivered so flagrantly and repetitively in her life.

More cuts, more craft service, more creative differences.

Objectivity was not exactly her bag. She liked to make things too. Things that were her things and not things that were subjected to scrutiny from higher-ups, investors, agents, or...fucking A-list actors.

Those shiny, golden gods that just looked like taut, well-groomed people to her. Those people that passed up many of the nutritional options available to them and instead spent their meal-times in their sequestered states, doing fuck knows what. Moping? Who fucking cared, they brought the room full of lay-people down without thinking twice about it, behaving as though they were some cloistered, spiritually-superior minority.

But Louise was diligent in pointing out continuity errors and in reporting the daily shooting progress to the powers that be. She didn't know why she had taken to it so readily, but there was a rush there. _A stop thinking about how shallow a pursuit this is and get your reports to such-and-such a suit, though he or she is not so much a suit because they wear the one percent's answer to lazy pants on the daily_ type of drive that made her think less about some greater purpose and more about the bottom line. Or rather, the fact that she had such a heavy hand in the determination of the bottom line. If only for the fact that she gave them flowery reports about what the people on their payroll were doing day in and day out. A bottom line that she gave no fucks about and therefore did not keep her up all night but that got her some place in the morning. Or afternoon, depending on the shooting schedule.

And every day, she blinked back tears of boredom and bleary sleep mucus to watch and...er, supervise...these industry people that had to pander to so many third parties above them. And it kind of felt good. Because she didn't have to doubt herself and her efficacy and contribution to the world here. She knew that it was scant at best and non-existent at worst. But she showed up every day and even the open-palmed slaps on the behind from her elderly friend, Solomon, were a welcome if not completely skeevy and bickering-inducing reward for her non-efforts.

Most days, she didn't bother making herself look more than ordinary in her messy top-knot and loose-fitting jeans because for all she knew, on any given day, she might end up being on set for eighteen hours and a lot of that was spent in the dark, staring at a page. So, yeah, her lifestyle choices had gone in a different path than what she was used to. Fuck it, though, yeah? She was tired of being depressed, tired of putzing around L.S. waiting for an _a-ha_ moment, for some sign, for some sage on Vinewood Boulevard to come up to her and read her face and make everything make sense.

Everything had gone opaque again and she hated that foggy feeling. She was going to make things make sense, even if it was by living a monotonous, vapid life. If she could just climb out of her fog, she could welcome a sign, a feeling. What the fuck ever. To that end, she spent her days among film professionals, film-amateurs, wannabe auteurs. Anyone that could pull her into that fantasy land, that place where little mattered but where no two stories were exactly the same.

She'd be lying if she said that there wasn't an abundance of eye-candy on those sets. In the midst of her starvation for intimacy, she had reverted to a near-Paleolithic appetite, at least of the eyes. She was bored and lonely and wanted for someone to tell her that she was pretty or some fucking thing like that.

Loneliness. It had only ever eaten at her when her then-husband had disappeared to Greece to get away from her. Now it was back in full force and she didn't even want to think of why it was biting so hard.

She found distraction in her friendships, sure. She had a lot of friends in the business and had made plenty more and they might all go out on a night when they were all free to laugh and canoodle and it was genuinely fun. But the next day she would always feel a little bit empty. She didn't think that it would be this hard to get back to “normal” life. In fact, she had sought a freakish life, one yoked to movie-making in an effort to make herself feel half way normal, but it had done little to assuage her self-doubt or her longing. Even so, she trucked along, day after day, finding happiness in small doses, slowly forgetting about where she had been less than a year prior.

There she was, day in and day out, being a good girl, making allies, taking notes. 'Til that one day when she got called into Solomon's office.

She walked into his mahogany chamber of nostalgia expecting the usual after a reasonable nine-hour day expecting what she had grown accustomed to on her visits.

A kiss on the cheek, a comment about her fine, ample behind, and a pep-talk to keep her showing up day after day. He wanted her here, too.

This day, though, would be slightly different without Louise knowing it. She sat down on one of his leather chairs, waiting for him to fix her drink, a drink she never asked for but that he would insist that she imbibe under any circumstances.And when he handed it to her, he would launch into the niceties.

Today was different, though. She didn't bother knocking and when she seated herself in front of his desk, it took him a moment to realize that she was even there. He was looking down his nose through a pair of reading glasses at some document. His eyes moved across the page while Louise remained perfectly still, waiting for him to acknowledge her. Suddenly, he put down the page and took off his reading glasses.

“Louise,” he said with a smile, looking up at her now.

She smiled back.

“Hi.”

“How are you sweetheart?”

“I'm good.”

“You sure?”

“Stop. Yes, I'm sure.”

“I have a proposition for you.”

“I dunno if I like the sound of that.”

He held up the piece of paper that he had been reading a moment previous.

“I got a memo from the filming location up north.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, and things are _not_ going good, Louise. They're a month into principal photography and things are already going to hell. The script is just _rife_ with inconsistencies and people aren't doing their jobs.”

“I see,” she said folding her hands in her lap.

She was lying though. She didn't really _see_ what this had to do with her and she didn't see why it was so different from any other Richards Majestic production.

“So I want you to go up there and give 'em a hand. We're firing the supervisor on location and replacing him with you.”

“Come again?”

“You heard me. You're going to work up in Banham Canyon. They need you there in three days.”

“Er...”

“It's a nice place, Louise. You like hiking? I'm told it's beautiful.”

“Why me specifically?” Solomon looked at her as though she'd just taken a chainsaw to his desk.

“I told you, you're needed up there! The project here at the studio is going fine. I need my best people on this disaster up north!”

“Am I being punished for something? Exiled?”

“Don't be ridiculous, Louise. I'll say it one more time...I just need another good pair of hands up there, that's all. That's why I chose you. Besides, you could use a break from the city, right?”

Louise felt her face twitch the way it did when she got nervous. The kind of nervousness one might get when people clearly have ulterior motives for sending them away to an isolated little nothing of a hamlet in the mountains.

“So how bad is this supervisor that they can't do what really amounts to little more than finding logical inconsistencies and Paul Revering those to a director?”

“Get one of your neighbors to water your plants and collect your mail and be on location by Thursday afternoon,” he said sternly.

“So it's not a proposition so much as a demand?”

“Thursday afternoon.”

A minute later...

“Fine.”

 

.............................

 

The day of. Always an auspicious occasion for the terminally criminal. Outside it was very much cloak and dagger but inside of that van, very little needed to be hidden. Four men who, by themselves were problematic it best and as a group were nothing less than an absolute blight on the civilized world.

The highway was sparsely populated today. Very few commuters and joy riders were on the road, even fewer tourists and desert ravers, but even with a clear-cut path to the podunk that they were about to take for all it was worth, they were taking their sweet time. Soaking up the excitement and trepidation that always came with pulling a job.

“Am I wrong to be more thrilled than I was the last time?” Michael asked no one in particular.

“No, I hear that regressing into a wayward fuckin' teenager comes with being an aging criminal,” shot Trevor.

“Really, T? 'Cause, uh, you've never stopped acting like a wayward fuckin' teenager. What's the order of operations for people like you? Are you going to start behaving like a normal person now?”

“Not a chance in hell, you squirrely fuck.”

Franklin cleared his throat from the back seat.

“You're both old as fuck and you're both actin' like children. I thought we was gettin' along now.”

Franklin's heart was plainly not in chastising his friends. He wanted this as bad as the two of them.

The only odd man out was Gus, who as far as any of them could tell was here purely for pragmatic reasons having to do with actually wanting a cut of the take. For that reason, he was keeping to himself even though the four of them had taken their share of scores together, if not in quantity then certainly in quality. The drive wasn't a long one and they were keeping time, trying to get there after the lunch hour when there would be fewer people to wrangle.

“So are we just going to keep doing this every time we get bored?” Franklin asked. “I mean, I know it don't seem like it but San Andreas has a finite number of banks.”

He was the first one to actually voice their true motives for taking this on.

“Don't be ridiculous, Frank. It's a job like any other,” Michael said, suddenly sounding a little meek at having Franklin lay their intentions bare like that.

“Yeah, Frank, don't be ridiculous. I mean we haven't even broached the tri-state area! There are thousands of tiny little hole-in-the-wall bank branches just begging for us to just tear in there and...Gah!” crowed Trevor as he fisted the air.

Michael reached over from the driver's seat and put his hand on Trevor's shoulder.

“Quick and clean, Trev. Quick and clean...”

 

............................

 

Louise sauntered around the set, twiddling her thumbs. She'd been there for four days and only one of them had been spent working. This was starting to feel like a glorified vacation in a place that she hadn't asked to go. It was a pretty place to be sure, but she wasn't terribly fond of isolated spaces so soon after she had almost been shot and chucked off a cliff in one of them.

Luckily, this location was full of actors and crew people, so she didn't feel unsafe, but she had gotten to feeling like she didn't belong here, that Solomon had indeed sent her here with a purpose, to keep her away from the studio or something. For what, she couldn't be sure, but she had started to think that it might have something to do with Michael De Santa's relationship to the studio and once she had started to think so, she'd started wishing that she had insisted on staying.

She couldn't really go anywhere. Banham Canyon was a little too wild still to have been developed into anything that resembled a real destination. Even the hotel she and the rest of the drudges had been relegated too boasted little in the way of amenities.

She and the others had entertained themselves in the off-hours by smoking weed, drinking appletinis and watching the four channels that were available to them from the digital cable box. The place did have a small heated pool, but it had lost it's luster after the first night and the hot tub adjacent to it had quickly become a den of iniquity, which Louise wasn't interested in being party to. Especially since she had found herself the object of the director of photography's affections. He was cute, but he was entirely too forward for her to even entertain the possibility of passing her evenings with him.

Louise seated herself on an upside-down wooden crate and rested her chin in one of her hands, waiting for some stroke of genius regarding what to do for the rest of today's shoot when she would have a reason to leave. Just when she had found herself giving more than a passing thought to asking the caterers if they were holding, she spotted Elena, a young grip pacing and cussing to herself. She stood up and approached.

 _“Shit,”_ Louise heard Elena mutter as she tapped her foot.

Elena was short, around Louise's height, with a mop of thick black hair and thick, lavender colored eyeglasses. She spoke with a lisp and usually showed nothing but a sunny disposition.

“Everything okay?” Louise asked her.

Elena looked at Louise with a look of deep worry on her face.

“I...It's nothing,” Elena started. “I just...I just got my paycheck and my car payment is supposed to go through today but I'm stuck here until after dark, so my account's going to be overdrawn. Dammit, I knew I should have opted in to direct deposit!”

“Shitty,” Louise said.

“There's a fucking Fleeca Bank in 'town',” she said with air quotes, “but they'll be closed before I get off.”

Louise's ears pricked up.

“I can't afford another fucking overdraft fee. Fleeca Bank, so named for their penchant for fleecing their customers,” Elena said sardonically.

“Er, maybe I can help?” Louise offered.

“How?”

Louise looked around the set, which was crawling with crew and extras, everyone but the principal actors who were likely in their trailers meditating on how creatively superior they were to everyone else there. Or the world.

“Well, I'm not really needed here, we're just doing re-shoots for the rest of the afternoon, so if you trust me, I could run into town for you.”

Elena's face lit up.

“You would do that for me?”

“Fucks yeah!” Louise chirped. “Besides, I could use something to do. I'm tired of sitting on my hands.”

“Oh my God, you are amazing!” Elena said a little too emphatically for what was less-than-altruistic.

She pulled an envelope out of her sweatshirt pocket.

“You got a pen?”

Louise pawed her body before remembering where she kept her pens these days. She reached up and pulled her pen out of her messy top-knot before handing it to Elena, who jotted some numbers down on the envelope, handing it to Louise.

“Quiet on set!” they heard someone say.

“Thank you,” Elena mouthed at her.

Louise winked and turned on her heel to fulfill her mission.

 

.....................

 

The bank parking lot was near-empty when Louise pulled up, but when she breached the double doors, she saw that there were lines in front of all three working tellers. _Where the fuck did all these people come from?_ She didn't really care all that much. It just meant that more time could be spent away from set. She just hoped she didn't get called back.

She walked over to one of the stations set up for filling out deposit slips and pulled out her phone, putting in her ear buds. If she was going to be here for a minute, she might as well listen to some tunes. She flicked at the screen until the music came on and slipped her phone into her skirt pocket.

She began filling out a deposit slip but quickly found that it was no easy task as Elena had a freakishly long and difficult-to-spell last name and a freakishly long account number and each and every pen left there at that station as a courtesy was just about dry. Not to mention that her cognitive abilities were becoming muddied due to the fact that she had burned one in the car before she walked in. Otherwise, she might have remembered that she had a pen sticking out from her bun. And that she was still wearing a pair of aviator sunglasses, which were making it hard for her to see what she was doing under the bank's mood lighting.

Now she was melting into the counter, hovering perfectly horizontally over the slip of paper, fighting the ink drought and forgetting what she was doing about every other millisecond.

 

..........................

 

Trevor, Michael, Franklin and Gus hopped out of the van, each decked in their regalia, faces covered in ski masks. They hustled to the doors of the bank. Now that they were in the daylight, there was little time for fanfare.

“Gentleman, let's knock 'em dead!”

They blustered through the doors, each armed, each excited. The script was very much the same as it was each and every time. _Everybody on the ground, play it cool and nobody gets hurt._

Franklin, Michael, and Trevor pushed the bank manager into the back and they were in the vault before the last terrified bystander got on their stomach, stuffing bills into bags while Gus stood watch over the floor.

In under a minute and a half, they had all the cash that they could fit and the three amigos were walking briskly out the door. There was no audible alarm raised and no cops outside. Quick and clean.

_Nobody move until we're gone. Count to a hundred._

The three of them walked out of the bank without giving it a second thought. That second thought that would have drawn attention to the fact that their fourth, Mr. Gustavo Mota was not at their heels.

..............................

 

Louise had finally finished filling out the deposit slip before double and triple checking it for errors, even though now that she was feeling the effects of the marijuana, no amount of checking could have assured her that she had done it right. She straightened up and started for the teller line, but was interrupted by a solid figure in her path. A man standing two steps behind her.

“'Scuse me,” she said, probably louder than what was proper, though her music was still blaring in her ears so there was no way for her to tell.

He seized her by the back of the neck and pulled her out from behind the slip station and that's when she saw them. One and a half dozen bodies lying on the floor, each one visibly petrified. _Fuck._ Time felt a bit squishy at that moment. Yeah, squishy was a good way to describe it. Between the adrenaline and the smoke, she was quite certain that this is not how one should perceive the passage of time.

She was crushed into his body now, facing away from him as he dragged her across the floor. She would have complied but she didn't seem to have a lot of the “flight” part of the fight and flight equation at her disposal.

She looked up to see a cop standing there with his gun drawn at her. Her breath caught in her chest as she was unable to recognize at this moment that he was aiming not at her, but at the man who was pulling her toward the exit. She saw the cop saying something and she could feel the thrum of her captor's voice vibrating against her body, but she couldn't hear anything save for the music blaring through her head phones. Her kidnapping was being accompanied by a soundtrack.

She did have the mental fortitude to recognize that there was a gun pointed at her head. She could see it in her periphery. He pulled her backwards out of the doors and into the sun, which was so harsh after standing in the ambient lighting of the bank as to make her disoriented, even with the sunglasses on. She was having a hard time keeping pace with him. Some how, when he cloaked her head with his jacket, it made it easier. She focused on the steps. _Right, left, right, left._ She was really regretting smoking that joint now.

 

...............................

 

“Where the fuck is he!” brayed Michael.

“Hold up,” Franklin said.

“I see him!”

“What the fuck is he doin'!”

“He's comin' this way and...Oh, shit...”

“What is it?”

“He's got a fuckin' hostage!”Franklin cried as he opened the back doors of the van.

“What!” barked Michael.

Trevor craned his body to look in the back of the van. Gus stepped in, pulling the hostage in with him. A woman by the looks of it. A tiny one with a jacket over her head. She collapsed on the floor of the van, not putting up any resistance. Her arms were frozen at her sides, fists clenched. Her skirt was hiked up and Trevor could see her lacy purple underwear peaking out from underneath. Michael gunned it as soon as the doors were closed.

“Gus, what the fuck!”

“There was a fucking cop in there, man!” Gus countered.

“What?”

“Yeah! Motherfucker was coming out of the bathroom. And this one,” he said, gesturing to the hostage “she was just standing there. I didn't see her at first 'cause she was hunched over, but when she stood up, I grabbed her to get her down on the ground with the others and that's when the fuckin' cop showed up!”

“Jesus Christ!” yelled Michael.

They were out on the highway in no time.

“Mikey, you need to get the fuck off the highway and take the back roads. We'll head to my place,” Trevor said, still looking with curiosity at the woman on the floor of the van.

“Oh no. No, no, no, T, we are not, I repeat, _not_ going to Sandy fuckin' Shores!”

“Well, we can't go to L.S., _M,”_ Trevor spat back. “There'll be roadblocks. Come on, we just need to lie low for a quick and then I will _personally_ fly you back to L.S.”

Michael was squeezing a long breath through pursed lips.

“You're not having a fucking heart attack right now are you?”

“No, T! I am not having a fucking heart attack! I'm just trying to figure out how what was supposed to be quick and clean turned into an unmitigated fucking disaster!” he screamed.

Trevor chuckled.

“Oh, Mikey. Mikey, Mikey, Mikey...”

“Get back there and check on the hostage,” Michael barked as he made a hard right off of the highway. He clearly didn't have his wits about him, otherwise he would _not_ have sent _Trevor_ to _check_ on a hostage. That was Franklin's territory, but Trevor didn't want to give his best friend a coronary right this second, so he climbed over the center console and into the back.

Franklin would have been useless anyway as he had his face buried in his hands, shaking his head back and forth. It would appear that he shared Michael's less-than-optimistic outlook on their _situation._

Gus was wearing a mean, smug look on his face as he leaned back on his bench.

Trevor shook his head at the smug bastard before he shook her shoulder.

“Hey, lady...”

She recoiled as his touch, which was a relief to him as she looked awfully cadaverous laying there all stiff and still. He pulled the coat off of her head.

He was at once remorseful and grateful that he had. But he didn't have time to prepare himself, so his heart jumped into his throat.

Even with her eyes squeezed shut, with her uncharacteristically messy hair and headphones and sunglasses and ratty old t-shirt, it only took him a moment. He recognized her immediately but he knew that it couldn't be. There was no possible way in this fucked up, calamitous, nothing-but-randomness-and-chaos-and-plenty-of-it universe that she was there. No fucking way.

 _Louise Bisby._ Or whatever the fuck she was calling herself these days.


	2. Chapter 2

Louise sat on the side of a hill pulling grass out of the ground. It was just her and the three of them as they had dropped the other guy off a few miles back at his request. She avoided their eyes, intermittently pulling on her earlobes. Her ears were ringing as she had been too buzzed before to realize how loud her music had been and she had only removed her earbuds when she had looked up to see Trevor staring down at her.

She heard Michael say something to her but she couldn't quite make it out through the ringing. She looked up at the three of them, each of them staring at her now. Not warm stares, either. Their looks were disbelieving even a little bit cold.

“What?” she said.

Michael approached her now.

“I _said_ what were you doing in that bank, Louise?” he demanded.

“Well, I was _trying_ to complete a transaction, but-”

“At a Fleeca Bank in Banham Canyon?”

Louise narrowed her eyes at him.

“Yes,” she said defensively.

Her buzz had all but worn off but now she was starting to feel guilty for some reason and she couldn't tell if their cold stares were a product of her imagination or if they really were sore at her for having the gall to have unwittingly entered the bank that they were robbing that day. She didn't even want to touch the ridiculous odds that she had to have beaten to end up there. Then again, they were very prolific criminals, so maybe the chance hadn't been all that remote.

She buried her face in her hands a collapsed backwards, sighing into her palms but she quickly felt a pair of hands pulling her back up by the shoulders. She dropped her hands to see Michael staring at her through his steely blue eyes.

“You're telling me that you just _happened_ to be at that bank depositing money into your account on the day that _we_ were knocking it over?”

Louise shook her head at him.

“No, I wasn't depositing money into _my_ account it was-”

The realization struck Louise suddenly. She gasped and covered her mouth.

“Oh, fuck! Elena's car payment!” She stood up. “Oh my God, she's going to be overdrawn! Because of me! Fuck!”

Louise brought her hand up to her forehead. _That's why she had been feeling guilty._

She looked at Michael who was looking at her with a dazed expression as though she had just kicked him in the head before she looked past him to see the other guys staring at her with quizzical expressions.

Louise cleared her throat and addressed Michael.

“A friend of mine from the set asked me to deposit her check for her-”

“The set?”

“Yes, Sol sent me here to help supervise the Banham Canyon unit-”

“Wait, Solomon sent you here?”

“Would you quit fucking interrupting me, Michael?” Louise barked but immediately regretted it, covering her mouth with her hand and looking at him penitently.

He raised his eyebrows at her and then gestured for her to continue.

“Actually, that's pretty much all there is to the story,” she said sheepishly.

“I thought you hated Vinewood,” said Franklin suddenly.

Louise was twisting a loose strand of hair around her finger now.

“Yeah, well I couldn't go back to working with kids. Once you've been held under a 5250, they want to keep you as far away from children as possible,” she said quietly.

Michael and Franklin looked at her sympathetically while Trevor wasn't looking at her at all. That stung a little bit.

Michael sighed and paced for a moment before he turned back to her.

“Louise, we, uh...We can't let you go back. Not just yet.”

“Why not?” Louise asked.

She didn't want to be here right now. It wasn't like before. Something had changed and she felt like they were all strangers to her again. She wanted to be back with people that she knew, where she had a job. Sure, months ago she would have jumped at the chance to see them all again, but they weren't all standing here together now because they had wanted to see one another. They were here because of a cruel cosmic joke. Louise had pretty much let go of her fanciful dreams of seeing them all again, had started to come to peace with the idea that she needed to live her life and she was making an effort. And now this...

“Because...If that whole thing went down like Gus said it did...When the cops get a look at that security footage, it might not look right. You know the fact that you weren't compliant...”

Louise guffawed.

“Well, if I'd had my faculties and I had _known_ that I was caught in the middle of a bank robbery, I would have fucking complied,” she said more angry at herself than at him.

“We just need to wait and check the temperature on the police beat and then we can let you go when it's safe.”

Louise stared at him. Franklin piped up again.

“We're headin' to Sandy Shores for a minute 'til the heat dies down. It won't be so bad.”

Louise looked at Trevor now who was finally looking at her. The mention of Sandy Shores opened the flood gates for her. She felt her heart sinking and bobbing in her chest.

_Sandy Shores is for lovers..._

Louise shoved her finger in Michael's face.

“You need to find a way to get word to my mom that I'm alright. I'm not putting her through this _again...”_

“I'll call Dave Norton. He'll tell her.”

“Good.”

Michael turned back to the other two.

“We gotta get to Sandy Shores without getting made. It'll take a few hours on these back roads...”

 

...................................

 

Trevor was stealing continuous glances in the rear-view mirror at Louise who was leaned against the doors in the back of the van. He thought she might be waiting for them to open up so that she would roll out or something. She looked tired and a little bit crazed as she had pulled her hair out of the knot and now it was mussed, teased up at the crown and around her ears and hanging down her shoulders in messy tendrils. It had grown several inches in the time they had been apart. Mostly she looked sad.

None of them had asked for this but she seemed to be taking it the hardest. Trevor didn't feel sorry for her, though. That's what you get when you compromise your values and let yourself fall back into a world that you hate. If she had just stuck to painting pictures, if she hadn't gone all fucking crazy just because she'd had to clip a dude, she wouldn't be in this position now and things might have come out differently between the two of them and he wouldn't have to degrade himself by sneaking looks at her like some pre-adolescent shit-heel kid. If she'd kept her fucking wits about her, he could be looking right at her without her staring back at him like she'd just watched him kick a puppy. The way she was staring at him right now. _Shit. She was staring back._ He averted his eyes.

She cleared her throat.

“Does anyone have any water?” she whined. “I have cotton mouth.”

“We'll be there soon, Louise. You can get some water then,” Michael called back at her.

She sighed petulantly before she started digging through her purse, pulling out some lip balm and applying it slowly to her mouth. Trevor couldn't help it. He was staring again. She tossed her lip balm back into her purse and cradled her chin in her palm.

Trevor felt a surge of impatience in his chest, impatience that went to anger in zero time flat. Fuck this he thought. He climbed over the console and into the back again eliciting an angry expletive from Michael as he kneed him in the arm.

“Watch it, T!” he spat.

Louise peered up at him as he stumbled toward her. Franklin was crashed out against the side of the van. Sleeping on the job yet again. He crouched down in front of her. She straightened her posture.

“Why the fuck did you go back to working at that shitty movie studio, Louise?” he snarled at her.

She narrowed her eyes at him.

“I _told_ you.”

“No, you used your fuckin' detour into crazy town as an excuse to regress into a life of self-loathing and misery.”

Louise glowered at him before she got up on her knees to get closer to his eye-line, though he still towered over her tiny frame.

“And just what the fuck is it to you?” she barked at him.

He rolled his eyes and scoffed at her.

“No,” she spat. “Seriously, what makes you think you get a say in what I did or didn't do after you left me unconscious in a fucking hospital for the _second time...”_

“Oh, knock it the fuck off, Louise...”

“Knock what off? You don't get to put the brakes on just because you don't like what I have to say...”

“I fucking hate what you're saying because it's mis-fucking-guided and naive as fuck...”

“Oh, oh, you know you're right,” she said sarcastically. “Silly me, I should be prostrating at your goddamn feet.” She cleared her throat and in a smooth, mocking voice she said, “Trevor, I'm so, so sorry that I've failed to follow your blueprint for a moral, upstanding life after you squished my heart into pulp under your giant fucking steel-toe boot.”

Her tenor at the end made Trevor's heart sink in his chest. She had dropped the act and collapsed back onto her ass. She looked up at him now. It was pitiful and it made Trevor hate himself in a way that he didn't think he ever had up to that point.

The van came to a stop just then and Michael called back to them.

“T, Louise. This is where I leave you.”

“What?” Louise yelled.

“Frank and I are going to get rooms after we get rid of this van. Louise, you have to stay here. For all we know, your picture is all over the news and someone might recognize you. So you're going to stay here and the two of you are going to try not to murder each other.”

Louise made a whimpering sound but snapped her mouth shut when she saw Trevor looking at her. He cleared his throat.

“Your castle awaits,” he growled at her, gesturing toward the outside.

 

...................................

 

Louise sat on the couch and sipped her water, covering her face with her hair while Trevor stood in front of her waiting for her to look at him. She wasn't budging. She was even more stubborn than he remembered. He didn't want to speak to her until she looked at him. Finally, though, he grew tired of the silence.

“You take the bed,” he said.

She looked up at him.

“No, thank you,” she said flatly.

Trevor rolled his eyes.

“I'm sorry that I pitched you shit about your terrible life choices, Louise. Now can you please stop with the cold shoulder?”

“I don't want an apology, Trevor,” she said quietly.

Trevor started pacing. First she was clamming up and now she wasn't going to tell him what she wanted.

“I can't change what happened fucking months ago, Louise.”

“I know that.”

“Take the fucking bed.”

“I will not...I _cannot_ sleep in that bed.”

“I'll brush the cigarette butts off.”

She looked up at him.

“You smoke now?” she asked, brushing her hair behind her ear.

Trevor gulped.

“No,” he said quietly.

Louise furrowed her brow at him.

“Oh.”

He wasn't going to tell her that he hadn't been able to perform any one of the three times that he had brought someone home with him in the past seven months. Someones that were meant to make him stop thinking about her but that never sufficed. Even though he had been attracted to and fucked countless inanimate objects in his time on earth.

Louise stirred and tapped her foot before she stood up.

“It's hot in here. I'm going outside.”

Trevor watched her walk out of the trailer, shutting the door behind her.

“I'm a fucking asshole,” he muttered to himself before he followed her out onto the porch.

It had gotten to be early evening now and the sun was starting to dip behind the mountains. Louise was tracing the designs in the wood grain of the porch railing. She didn't look at him when he joined her at the railing.

“Louise, I'm sorry, okay? I know that is far from fucking _ideal_ , okay, but can we just...I dunno, try to pretend this is less _unpleasant_ than it is?”

She looked up at him with wide green eyes.

“Pretend? You hate pretending.”

“Yeah, but-”

“And since when is being around me unpleasant for you?”

Trevor bit his lip and stooped to meet her eye line.

“That's not what I was saying, Lou. It's just that I know that you're still pissed off at me, so I thought maybe you could pretend that I'm someone that you don't hate for five minutes while we're bunking together,” he said barely hiding his rising anger.

Louise's face fell.

“I don't hate you. I wish to hell I did. It would make it easier to deal with the fact that you left me so soon after we...” she said cutting herself off, blushing slightly.

Trevor smiled.

“After we what?” he asked playfully.

“Shut up,” she shot at him with a slight smile.

“No, no, no, no, no,” he said beaming down at her. “To what are you referring, young lady because a lot of things happened between you and I and plenty of time has elapsed since then.”

Louise raised her eyebrows and stuck out her bottom lip.

“I'm _referring_ to the emotional blue balls that you left me with when I woke up without a note or anything resembling an explanation besides Dave Norton's annoyingly familiar spiel about how I'm too good for this life and how you were all just looking after my best interests.”

Trevor felt his eyes get wide with something that felt like dampened rage. He ran his hand through his thinning hair.

“Well, to be fair, you lost your fucking mind...”

 _“Temporarily,”_ she said in a way that suggested that the feeling was mutual. “And not because of you.”

“We were the common fucking denominator, Louise.”

“I killed a grief-sick, terrified young man and then I ghost-rode his car over a cliff to cover it up, Trevor,” she said with a humorless laugh.

She turned her body to his and boared into him with her eyes.

“Something really fucked up was with me up there. I can't describe it, but in that moment, I...I was _too_ much myself. I mean...I was like a reptile or something. Some latent, cold part of me that should have been bred out of me by a couple of hundred _thousand_ years of evolution was very much alive and well and it was sickening, Trev.”

Trevor saw that she meant it when she said it sickened her and he was very familiar with that feeling. He'd felt the very same when he'd taken his first. Louise had probably just been born around that time when he and Michael had killed that guy up on the border. He'd never forgotten the feeling. But if he thought for a second that Louise was on the same blood-soaked path that he had been on, that she was carrying around whatever ugly kernel of an evolutionary misstep that had created the likes of him, he would have put her out of her misery right then and there. Instead, though, he looked at her and almost without thinking, ran his hand through her hair before resting it on her cheek.

“You know I was half-expecting for you to show up here fucking _months_ ago, Lou.”

Her eyes were soft now, almost like a baby's.

“I thought about it,” she gulped.

“What stopped you?” he asked, taking another step toward her.

“I dunno. I thought I did but now I have no clue,” she said in a hushed voice.

Trevor retracted his hand, but Louise caught it with unfathomable speed and gripped it tight in hers.

“I think I'm just supposed to keep an eye on you,” Trevor said absently, paying uncharacteristic deference to some unspoken propriety.

“I like when your eyes are on me,” she said in a way that would have seemed downright flirtatious if it hadn't been so automatic.

Trevor wasn't deluded. He had never been _out_ during this whole time, therefore it couldn't be said that she was pulling him back _in_ to anything. But he was just now figuring out how good he had become at anesthetizing himself every time he missed someone and that mechanism had been working on him for the past several months. It had worked so well that his cock had stopped working when he had needed it to and now the thought that he hadn't let himself miss this as much as he truly had was at once a relief and fucking aggravating. What was even more relieving was that now she looked like herself again.

He had been staring at her for the past several hours, taking her in this way. If she hadn't been wearing a skirt, he wasn't sure that he would have recognized her. He had nicknamed her _classy cakes_ for a reason. Because she'd been completely anachronistic in how well she groomed herself, almost always pinning her hair back on one side, always wearing dresses that made her look like a time-traveling Sunday school teacher or something, though not a _frigid_ one. So naturally, seeing her dressed down like this, clean though she was, had come as somewhat of a shock to him. But now that she was looking at him the way she had the last time he'd seen her awake, he could see her again.

He could feel her pulling on his hand now, though he didn't think that she knew that she was doing it. He looked down at her long fingers on her tiny hand, the nails of which were painted a deep, almost black red and was struck by how right they looked strangling his thick, calloused ones. He liked it up here on this cloud, but he also knew that staying up here was dubious. He could give a fuck about _ethics_ , but he also knew more than he cared to about where this was likely heading and how agonizing it was for the both of them to go back there. Then again, he didn't know if it could have gone a different way unless someone else had snatched her up from underneath him. The look in her eye told him otherwise. A look he'd seen a million times before, one that almost apologetic but was in fact her answer to a sultry stare. One of her strange quirks that he adored.

She let go of his hand and slid between him and the railing, hoisting herself up to seat herself on it before she pulled him between her legs, cupped his face in her hands and kissed him, lightly at first before she gripped the back of his neck and slung an arm around his middle. That did it for him.

He kissed back. Squeezed back. Pressed back. Sour. Sweet. Most likely regrettable.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I don't really even know with this one. I hope you like it anyway :)

Franklin was sitting on the motel bed trying like hell to nod off but having no luck. His thoughts were swimming. _Fuckin' quick and clean, right?_

He kicked his shoes off and texted Lamar requesting that he go and check on Chop dog before he threw his phone on the bedside table and covered his face with his hands, laying still, hoping for sleep to creep in. After a minute, he heard a knock at the door.

He shot up, partly relieved that he had an excuse to avoid wrestling his thoughts down. He pulled himself off the bed and walked the five steps to the door, opening it to see Michael standing there.

“'Sup,” Franklin said, noting the defeat in his voice.

“Hey,” Michael said quietly, stepping past him into the room.

He took seat at the little table put there as a courtesy and rubbed his temple. Franklin slumped back into the bed.

“Some fuckin' day we've had,” Franklin said absently.

“Yeah, no shit.”

“Fuckin' Louise Bisby.”

“Robataille.”

“What?”

“Her new last name is Robataille.”

“How the fuck she come up with that?”

“I think I heard her say that it was her great grandmother's or something. They didn't issue birth certificates to bayou children at the turn of the last century, apparently, so she got away with using it.”

Franklin pulled his knees up, resting his elbows on them.

“What are the fuckin' odds, man? I mean really? How the fuck she end up there today of all days?”

Michael rubbed the corner of his mouth and looked at Franklin through bleary eyes.

“I ain't tryin' to pretend how the universe works anymore, Franklin. Especially not where she's concerned...”

He chuckled and shook his head.

“What do we do with her?”

Michael shrugged.

“I don't know how much say we have in what happens to her, man. I mean, we gotta make sure she doesn't get nailed for what we did, but short of putting her in a crate and shipping her off to a remote island, I have no clue. She's made it abundantly fucking clear that she ain't leaving L.S. anytime soon, so...”

“Tell me somethin', man,” Franklin started, dropping his knees and leaning toward Michael for emphasis. “Am I wrong to be mad at her? I mean, I know she didn't plan this, but things was goin' back to normal. I have enough shit on my plate without having to worry about her ass getting kidnapped all the time...”

“Naw, I don't think you're wrong. I mean...Ya know, it's not her fault, but if someone attracts the kind of chaos that she does just by _existing_ , it gets to a point where it's hard not to think she's doin' _something_ wrong,” Michael snorted.

They sat quietly for a minute before Michael started chuckling to himself.

“What's funny?” Franklin shot.

Michael was shaking his head back and forth.

“Nothin',” he said.

“Naw, don't do that, man. What're you laughin' at?”

Michael quit laughing enough to get a sentence out after a moment.

“Solomon sent her to Banham Canyon to keep her away from me.”

Michael's tired eyes were moist and tinged red from the tears eeked out during his little laughing fit.

“Huh?”

“The old fucker knew I was going to be making regular appearances at the studio while we get this next flick in the can, ya know? He shipped her off to Banham Canyon so that our paths wouldn't cross. It's kinda fucked up when you think about it.”

Franklin glared at him. He didn't think it was funny at all.

“That is fucked up,” he spat. “Profoundly so.”

Michael looked at him and his eyes softened when he saw that Franklin was sore at that little tidbit, but he didn't wipe the smirk off of his face. He shrugged again as he rose to his feet.

“I'll tell you one thing, Frank. I don't think that any amount of manipulation on our parts is going to keep her out of our lives. Unless we kill her ourselves,” he said dryly.

Franklin guffawed.

“I thought all we've been doin' the last year is tryin' to keep her ass alive.”

Michael nodded at him.

“Well, I can't speak for you, but I'm going to keep doing just that.”

“Naw, you _can_ speak for me. I ain't tryin' to let somethin' happen to her now. Not after all this shit.”

Michael shot him a warm, tired smile as he backed toward the door.

“Night, Frank.”

Franklin laid back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. He'd never been too good at lying to himself. He couldn't lie to himself the first time he held someone up, the first time he'd had his heart smashed to bits by a girl who didn't want to be with him because _that life wasn't for her._

What made Louise different from her? What made a mild-mannered do-gooder like Louise Bisby seek refuge in the company of three men who, as far as the rest of society was concerned, were the human equivalent of fuckin' blood stains on crisp white linens?

Okay, alright, she hadn't planned any of this, but she didn't make a run for it, either. She hadn't made a run for it any of the times that the three of them resurfaced in her life and she probably wasn't going to do that now. That's what was getting to him. It wasn't that she kept winding up in heaps of trouble or that she didn't shrink from them the way pedestrians and bystanders did. It wasn't that they had had to protect and save her ass. It was that he couldn't figure out what it was about her that kept putting her on their map, them on hers.

She was a poor excuse for an enigma given how genuine she was and every time he thought he'd had it figured out, this kind of shit would happen and he'd have to reassess everything he thought he knew. And _that_ was giving him a fuckin' headache. A formidable motherfuckin' headache that had lasted close to a year.

He reached for his phone and quickly found her number in his list of contacts. He hoped that she'd had the foresight to turn the phone off since the one time was probably looking for her, but he had something he wanted to say to her, if she was ready to listen. He pulled up the text function on the phone and hammered out a message to her before putting the phone back on the nightstand and closing his eyes for the last time that night.

 

.............................

 

“Lemme see it,” demanded Trevor.

Louise looked up at him. They were in his bed, him crumpled against the wall without a shirt on while she sat criss-cross near the foot of the bed, sketching his likeness into her sketch pad for what was probably the millionth time since the last time they had seen each other.

“No,” she said, trying to hide the playfulness in her voice.

“If you got ink, I wanna see, now show it to me,” he said before taking a swig of his beer.

Louise avoided his eyes as she added shadows to the drawing. She could feel her irrepressible smirk holding firm on her face.

She had mentioned the tattoo in passing when he asked her what she had been doing the past several months. Part of her had wanted this type of response, to test and play with him like she had so many times before, but the other part of her wanted him to hold still so that she could keep doing what she was doing. Committing his likeness to paper with the real thing in front of her was far less painful then when she had to do so from memory. That had been torturous but now he was here.

This was nice, actually. They hadn't been fooling around but here they were on his bed, he a little more naked than he had been a half an hour previous. It felt to her like they had done it a million times before. Like they'd each had a perfectly ho-hum, (relatively) normal kind of day and now they were just going through some kind of normal (for them) routine before they settled in for the evening. It was weirdly quaint and it felt a little silly to Louise that she was entertaining such a fantasy, but she was letting herself have it.

“Maybe later,” she said softly.

She couldn't help but meet his eyes then, breaking into a full mischievous smile, which did nothing to quiet his curiosity about the tattoo that she was hiding somewhere on her body.

He guzzled down the rest of his beer and tossed the can into the corner of the room before he got to his knees and crawled to her spot on the bed, looking down at her. She stuck her pencil in her mouth and looked up at him, but he abruptly pulled it from her mouth and tossed it on the floor, along with the sketch pad in her lap.

“Man...” she whined.

“Show me,” he said sounding a little suggestive.

She beamed up at him and shook her head, knowing full well that he would keep pressing until she gave him what he wanted. He quickly grabbed her by the arms and wrestled her to her back, to which she squirmed and giggled as he lifted up her shirt, searching her body. His hands felt nice but they were still the least bit foreign given the passage of time. It was nice to have him pawing her, but it also felt strange, so she decided to surrender to his demand...Somewhat.

“I'll give you a hint,” she said.

He locked eyes with her, his hands still pushing her t-shirt up.

“It's...That's too high,” she said. “It's lower.”

Trevor bit his lip and looked at her skirt, pushing it up and coming up with nothing.

“Front or back?”

“Front,” she replied.

He moved down to her legs.

“You're getting warmer,” she cooed at him.

He tugged at the top of her thigh-high stocking.

“Warmer...” He pulled both of her stockings off simultaneously.

“White hot...” she whispered.

He tossed them aside and searched now, finally grasping her foot with his calloused hand, which sent a jolt through her body. She shuddered and giggled. He grasped her foot tighter and looked at her, smiling faintly as he gazed at the top of her foot at the small tattoo of her own design there. He smirked.

“An angelfish,” he said quietly.

“What else?” she said, straining to push herself up on her elbows.

He loosened his grip on her foot and she rested it on his chest tracing circles with her big toe. They just stared at each other for a minute.

Louise felt something sticking to her lower back and she stirred and arched as she reached under herself. After a little grasping, she pulled out a cigarette butt, the second one that she had accidentally found that night. It was covered in lipstick, same as the last one. She studied it for a second.

“Ooh, _Ravish Me Red_. At least she was classier than whoever was wearing that disgusting frosty pink shade,” she said flicking it away and folding her hands behind her head.

Trevor was wearing a strange expression now, a little unreadable, which always made Louise uneasy as Trevor's disposition was one of brutal honesty. She narrowed her eyes and cocked her head at him.

“What?” she asked.

He seemed to ignore the question.

“I like those panties,” he said.

She lifted her skirt a little higher to look at the lacy purple underwear that she had on.

“Yeah?” she asked.

“They are somethin' else,” he lilted, staring at her crotch now.

“You haven't seen the back,” she tried.

He cocked an eye brow at her and she pulled her foot away from him so that she could roll over. She pulled off her skirt and lifted her shirt to the middle of hr back so that he could see the straps that ran across the back of them and the cut-out of a butterfly at her tailbone. They weren't completely revealing but they were very suggestive. She heard him sigh.

“Good lord above,” he growled, laying down next to her now.

He thumbed the straps, shaking his head and biting his lip. She tried not to let on how much she was enjoying his attention right now. He stopped pawing, though, suddenly looking contemplative.

“These are the kind of underwear that you wear for someone else, Lou,” he said sounding distant.

She raised her eyebrows at him before craning her neck to look back at them.

“Yeah, I guess,” she said, not knowing what he was getting at.

He retracted his hand now, looking her hard in the eye. _Oh_. She rolled her eyes.

“Did you have...” he started, swallowing hard before continuing, _“...plans_ with someone this evening?”

Louise rolled over onto her side and propped her head up on her hand.

“Why?”

“I was just asking.”

“You were asking if I left a gentleman caller back in Banham Canyon because I'm wearing fancy underwear.”

“Well, did you?”

 _“No,”_ she spat.

She hadn't wanted to have this discussion even though it did irk her mildly to know that someone other than her had been in this bed since the night that they had spent in it. But she knew Trevor, knew his appetite, and she didn't expect for him to be chaste after he'd effectively ended whatever type of union they had shared all those months ago.

Trevor exhaled hard through his nose.

“Well, pardon me, Louise, but what am I supposed to think when I see you wearing...” he gestured downward “...the single sexiest pair of underwear I have ever seen with the crotch left in?”

Louise pulled herself up and got to her knees, looking down at him now.

“They're _underwear_ , Trev.”

Silly, sexy underwear that a friend had gotten her as an "unwedding" present after she had announced her intention to divorce Greg Bisby, that she had forgotten about until she was packing for her stay in Banham Canyon, that, when she had seen them, made her go _fuck it._

“They are a symbol, Lou, a-”

“An _invitation?”_

“No!”

Louise sighed and took his chin in one of her hands.

“I haven't been with anyone else, Trev. Full disclosure, I went on one date a few months ago and it ended with me politely asking the guy to lose my number. The director of photography on the project I was working on until today has told me in no uncertain terms that he wants to...But we haven't because _I'm_ not interested.”

His eyes were still hard, but they were searching her face now.

“I wear these because whether or not someone sees me in them, they make me feel sexy. And nobody has made me feel like that since you left, no matter how sweet or insistent they've been.”

Trevor stared at her for another minute before he piped up.

“My cock hasn't worked in seven months,” he said flatly.

Louise dropped her hand from his face.

“Come again?”

“You heard me. I mean it works enough for me to take care of myself but as far as other people go...”

“Trevor, I just pulled a cigarette butt covered in lipstick off of my back...”

He propped himself up on his elbow.

“I didn't say I didn't _try_ to get my mind off of me and you, I'm saying that it didn't work. You were right, by the way, the chick with the red lipstick was definitely classier than the one with pink lipstick.”

“Trevor-”

“And I tried to slice it more than one way, ya know. I mean, I'm not exactly a young fuckin' stallion or nothin' but I've never had a problem before...”

“Wait-”

“But now that you're here it's pretty goddamn obvious to me that I'm not in any danger of relying on pharmaceuticals to feel less like a cadaver.”

Louise chuckled disbelievingly shaking her head. She sighed. That was quite a revelation coming from the likes of him and she didn't really know where to take it from here. She didn't know if he was blaming her or what he thought the extent of her responsibility was. She didn't know if that little rant was his roundabout way of him telling her that she'd fucked him up in the same way that he had her or if it was another one of those uniquely Trevor Philips affection bombs that he dropped once in a while, but she'd be lying if she said that it didn't give her butterflies. Butterflies with razors for wings, but butterflies nonetheless. He looked at her and she tried not to look back at him, but those eyes just kind of pulled her gaze toward them like a tractor beam.

“I don't really know what to say to that, Trev,” she said, rubbing the back of her neck.

“You don't _gotta_ say anything,” he said staring up at her with wild eyes.

“Okay,” Louise said smiling lightly.

He eyed her body now, studying her.

“You look different. I've never seen you wear a t-shirt.”

She smirked.

“You're not digging the t-shirt?”

“It's just that you were always wearing dresses. You kinda don't look like yourself.”

“I haven't felt like myself for a while, Trev.”

He sucked his bottom lip and raised his eyebrows at her in a way that looked almost sympathetic.

“How about now?”

“Now I feel under dressed.”

He pulled himself up to sit with her.

“I'll be the judge of that, little lady,” he said.

“I eagerly await your judgment,” she deadpanned.

He shook his head and clucked at her.

“No, I'm not going to be ready to make an assessment until I see what's under the t-shirt,” he purred at her.

“I see,” she said quietly.

He stared at her expectantly for a minute.

“Oh for fuck sake, Lou,” he sighed.

“What?” she shot defensively.

“Do I have to fuckin' spell it out for you?” he asked rhetorically as he tugged at the bottom of her t-shirt.

She giggled as he lifted it over her head. He exhaled hard through his nose as he stared at her chest. The bra didn't match the underwear, but it was just as lacy and almost as debauched in its lack of practicality. It was very much for showing off cleavage and now it struck her as funny that she had been wearing it under a t-shirt.

“Well?”

He held his hard stare and held his finger up to her. She rolled her eyes. After a moment he spoke.

 _“There's_ my classy cakes,” he said quietly, smiling up at her wryly.

She hadn't heard him call her that in so long. She could feel her blank expression as she blinked and soaked it in.

_Yes, she felt like herself again. The version of herself that she liked. The person she was when she was with him._

"Maybe I did have plans for someone this evening without knowing it," she said softly.

Trevor licked his lips subtly as he scanned her body. He sighed contentedly as he looked into her face again.

"Bully for me, baby..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy holidays!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of angsty fluff before I get to the stupid amount of action I wrote, holy cow, you don't even know.

Trevor flicked each of Louise's clothing items into the washing machine one-by-one while she sat on the machine next to it, watching him. He pulled his shirt off and chucked it in there last. Louise was wearing one of his flannels and nothing else, which pretty much swallowed her tiny frame, but dammit if he didn't adore the sight. Not to mention how surprised he had been that she had let him strip her in public.

He had decided that they needed to get out of the trailer and since she would be leaving tomorrow per Michael's _demand_ , he thought it would be nice for them to go out. He chose to commandeer the laundromat, sliding a broomstick through the handles of the commercial doors. Fuck Michael's insistence that he keep her inside.

Truth be told, he hadn't wanted to take her on some big, crazy, unforgettable outing. He felt like if he had done that, it would have felt like goodbye forever. No, better to do something mundane and make it their own. Make it feel like just another day.

It was dark now and he knew that it was perfectly likely that some of Sandy Shore's finest human beings would be around wanting to do laundry or to find somewhere to use, but he had every confidence that when they caught sight of _him_ through the window, they would reassess their desire to do so.

He slid some quarters into the slots and wantonly emptied a tiny box of detergent into the machine before he stepped back in front of Louise.

“So, what's your story?”

Louise shot him a queer smile.

“Is this...Is this a role-playing thing?”

Trevor chuckled.

“I _mean_ what are you going to say to the cops and your friends and your boss?”

Louise blushed and laughed.

“Oh...Well, er, I have something, don't worry.”

“What is it?”

Her face fell and she avoided his eyes. She obviously didn't want to talk about it. Neither did he but he thought he could at least make an effort to come off as prudent. If only to hide his own reluctance to let her go again.

“I'm going to tell them that you dropped me off in the wilderness and that I roughed it for a couple of nights.”

“Why don't you tell them that we were holding you somewhere?”

“Because they'll ask me where. They'll want directions and I won't be able to give 'em. Better to make them think that I was lost and confused and scared.”

Trevor was smiling despite himself. She had gotten to know this game so well, inside and out, and it was weirdly twisted. He liked twisted. He liked how she could over think and anticipate what kinds of questions the cops would have for her. She looked up at him, seemingly reading his mind.

“I used to lie to the cops all the time for my brother,” she shrugged.

“Mm, what a good little sister you were,” he cooed at her, rubbing her thigh.

She smiled and shook her head at him, leaning back on her hands.

“So, uh...?”

Trevor broke his gaze from where their bodies were almost joined at the crotch and looked into her face.

“Last time I left here was the last time I saw you for...forever and-” she said, cutting herself off.

“And?” he tried.

She was staring at his bare chest, her mouth hanging open, carefully calculating what she wanted to say.

“And I was wondering...I...I don't want that again,” she said, meeting his eyes now.

Trevor narrowed his eyes at her. He wanted to yell at her, to tell her to quit being vague and meek and fucking spit it out, whatever she was trying to tell him. He resisted.

“You wanna tell me what the fuck you're talking about?” he asked flatly, almost expecting for her to hit him or to chide him for being droll when she was trying to be sincere.

She didn't, though. She looked up at him with wide, soft, possibly scared eyes. He knew that she was biting her tongue even if he couldn't see it. She exhaled hard.

“I'm asking you to not disappear again,” she said softly.

Trevor stared at her blankly.

“Okay, so you're saying-”

“I'm saying that I want you in my life,” she said, slightly more exasperated, as if she was being forced to teach algebra to an infant. “Consistently. Not just when we crash into eachother.”

Trevor could feel his brow twitching, partly because he'd wanted to hear it without having known it and partly because it was the worst fucking thing she could have said to him, then or ever. Because it didn't make sense. It belonged in a fever dream or a hallucination, not here in a laundromat that smacked of banality and failure and goddamn reality.

 _Goddammit._ Trevor Philips took things that he wanted, always had. Pretty much nothing could stop him up to this point. But he didn't know if she was aware of what she was asking for. Maybe he'd been hanging around Townley for too fuckin' long, he didn't know. Something didn't seem right about diving right in, though. Into whatever the fuck this was. Maybe Michael had worked on him long enough that he didn't feel like he deserved it or that it was possible.

Louise wasn't traditional. Neither was he. But despite that, together they were nothing less than an absolute freak show. There was no clean label to slap on this to make it legit in the eyes of Michael or anyone else. Not that that was enough to stop Trevor. He could give a flying fuck what other people thought, but he had some pretty serious questions about whether or not she would be able to deal with whatever bullshit everyone would throw at them. She might not have been happy in the mainstream, but the mainstream had chosen her. And so had the fringe, but he didn't want for her life to be like Michael's. Didn't want her to have to hide shit. She was being genuine, honest, he knew that much. That's the way she was even when she was playing head games with him, which was making this even harder. He couldn't call bullshit because it wasn't bullshit. _Goddammit._

He grabbed her face and pulled her into his, not for a kiss, but to look her in the eye. Closely. But neither one could stand it. He pressed his forehead to hers for a moment before he heard the broom handle rattling in the commercial door handles.

He flipped the unknown encroacher the bird without pulling away. The rattling stopped. He could practically hear them gasping, running away.

“Goddammit, Trevor,” Louise whispered after a moment.

He dropped his hands from her face and pulled away. But she pulled back and threw her arms around his neck and shook her head _no_ at him the way a little kid does when you wield an eyedropper full of medicine at them. He didn't know what else to do and he didn't want to do anything else just then, so he just kissed her. She kissed him back and he pulled the buttons open on the flannel and stuck his hand inside and pawed her and needed her and wanted her and quit giving a shit about giving her a satisfactory answer. And he felt like he could have done a flip or walked on the ceiling when she let slip a satisfied shudder at his touch and a whisper of _come here, baby_ as she scooted back toward him.

He didn't know what to tell her. He knew what he'd tell her if he had it his way and if he wasn't goddamn terrified of making promises that he might not be able to keep.

 

..........................

 

Louise wordlessly slumped down in the passenger seat of the car and Michael, without a word, without a snarky comment about her sudden inability to say _hello_ upon seeing an old friend, pulled out onto the road as soon as she curtly told him to _go_.

The engine thrummed a little louder over every pothole and crater and created a kind of ambiance, but it was an ambiance that did nothing to water down the palpable tension in the car. They reached the junction after a few minutes. He flicked the right blinker on before he saw Louise straighten up.

“No, head north. Toward the Chilead.”

Michael narrowed his eyes at her suspiciously, but complied anyway, creeping into the left turning lane and pulling out toward the interstate.

“What's in the Chilead?”

Louise relaxed her shoulders when she saw that he was headed north now.

“If you take me there, the cops will think that you were headed north. It's just a precaution.”

Michael guffawed. His sudden outburst surprised not only Louise but himself. He cleared his throat but couldn't help but let out a small chuckle at Louise's _take charge_ attitude.

“Well, look at you, Louise. Lookin' out for the crew. I'll mail you your cut,” he quipped.

Louise didn't respond. Michael looked at her but he couldn't read her expression. The aviator sunglasses that she wore were obscuring her most expressive feature, so he just sighed instead.

“You alright, kid?”

Louise let her head drop backward against the headrest in an exaggerated show of almost adolescent petulance.

“You're asking me that now?” she laughed. “No, Michael, I'm not alright. I had a shitty weekend.”

“It's Wednesday,” he said matter-of-factly.

“I thought Franklin was taking me home.”

“Well, so did I, but apparently Franklin had some Chamberlain Hills business to take care of and you don't want to go home, so...”

Louise was biting the tip of her thumb now.

“You're mad, huh?” he said.

Louise dropped her hand from her mouth and looked at him, finally.

“What of it?” she said softly.

“Knock it off, Louise, just talk to me.”

“About what?”

“About what's bugging you, that's what.”

Louise was laughing now.

“How about how I'm trying to cover your asses even though you're all awful and people are disposable to you?”

Michael stiffened his lip, trying to suppress his anger. She was being so childish again.

“So what, you wanted us to hang around, see how much farther into your psychotic episode we could push ya?” he spat.

“Pull over,” she said.

“No.”

“Pull over, Michael,” she said in a monosyllabic fashion.

Again, for some fucking reason, he complied with the demand, veering onto the shoulder, gradually reducing speed until he stopped. As soon as he was in park, she hopped out of the car.

She immediately started pacing and he craned his neck to watch her walk to the back of the car, each passing vehicle whipping the fabric of her skirt around. She had one hand on her hip the other covering her face before she abruptly dropped them to her sides. He couldn't hear her frustrated scream over the blaring horn of a passing big-rig.

He got out of the car and walked toward her. She had her hands over her face when he reached her.

“Louise.”

She wouldn't look at him, so he pulled her hands away from her face and pulled her sunglasses off. He slipped the sunglasses into his pocket and looked into her eyes. They were just the tiniest bit red but very wet, with broad, shiny tear slicks under each of them.

His tense shoulders dropped. He pulled her face sideways to look at him and she did, though she was obviously ashamed of her own tears.

“What's the matter, kid?”

She laughed at him again and through her tears, it seemed to be even more mocking than it had been before. They stared for a minute, her face becoming gradually more sorrowful. She opened her mouth to say something, but seemed to be choking on the words. She exhaled hard. She took another step toward him.

He was taken aback by how strong she seemed as she pulled him close to her. He felt her wrap her arms around him and laid her head on his shoulder. He sighed and put his arms around her middle.

She sobbed, but it was brief, a single hiccup. And then he heard her sniffle.

“I'm not crazy.”

He tightened his grip instinctively, feeling shitty suddenly for making her feel like he'd been implying that she was crazy. He'd wondered since the last time he'd seen her, sure. But when he'd talked to her after the bank job, he knew. She'd just needed a break that one time. That time when she went far away. It had been too much.

“I know, kid,” he said into her hair.

“I'm not going for apologize for missing you assholes.”

He smiled and stroked her side with his thumb.

“I missed you, too.”

She sniffled as she broke away from him, though neither of them let the other go. She looked less distressed now.

“So, what's your plan when we get to Chilead?”

Her mouth twitched and her eyes moved around before she sniffled again.

“I'm gonna roll down a hill and get dirty and tell them that I was left in the wilderness.”

Michael smiled.

“Yeah?”

She nodded.

“Yeah, I can pull it off, I think,” she said quietly with a weak smile.

He snorted.

“I know you can pull it off,” he said.

When they were back in the car he turned to her.

“Hey, uh...Did something happen with Trevor? I mean, everything go okay between you?”

Louise looked back at him blankly. That told him all he needed to know, though he hadn't been angling for it, in all honesty. He sighed.

“Right,” he said dryly, pulling them onto the freeway.

Louise rolled her eyes.

“So, that's still goin' on?” he asked.

He looked back to see her staring straight ahead with the same blank expression.

“Right.”

He slipped his hand into his front pocket and pulled out her sunglasses, passing them to her. She took them from him and slipped them back on without looking his way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked. My, my. The feels :(


	5. Chapter 5

Louise stumbled to her front door having been jarred from a hard, dream-filled sleep by a pounding at her door. She blinked sleep from her eyes as she pulled a robe on, sliding the lock out of place and cracking the door.

The man that stood there immediately leaned over to look through the crack in the door.

“Louise Robataille?” he tried.

“Yes?” she answered tentatively.

He pulled a badge from his cheap suit jacket and flashed it at her.

“I'm Lieutenant Bodine from the L.S. County Police Department. Can I have a minute of your time?”

Louise's stomach did a tiny flip, but she tried to ignore it as she opened the door further, leaning against the door jamb.

“What's this about, Lieutenant?” she asked quietly, folding her arms over her chest.

The man straightened up and shot her a smile as she studied him up and down.

“I just have some follow up questions regarding the bank robbery in Banham Canyon. May I come in?”

Louise looked back into her house. Even though she knew that she was alone, she couldn't help but feel like someone might emerge, someone who shouldn't be there. She shifted on her feet, suddenly feeling like no amount of limp fabric could make her feel less naked than she felt right now.

“Yeah, okay,” she said, stepping aside and letting him in.

The officer sauntered into her living room, scanning it as she imagined police officers did when you permitted them into her home, but the feeling that it gave her made her a little queasy.

The first time that she had had to deal with law enforcement in a heady way, it was when she awoke in her hospital bed to see Dave Norton standing there. Dave Norton, whose presence there was due in large part to the fact that his authority as a federal agent gave him precedence over the local-level brass. His presence had actually been oddly comforting, which was funny because her acquaintance with him was most certainly as clandestine as it could have been in spite of the fact that he no doubt had kept some kind of paperwork on her. He would have had to, right?

The second time she had to deal with law enforcement, it was again in a hospital, but this time it was a couple of green detectives that seemed to be satisfied by Louise's insistence that she knew nothing of who had kidnapped her and that she remembered little of the incident. The emergence of Dave Norton for the second time had sealed her sense of security. Today, however, Dave Norton was nowhere to be seen and so this man's arrival at her door was unsettling.

Louise pulled the blinds open to let more light into the room. It struck her a bit funny that the gesture was oddly symbolic, that she was hoping that it connoted her lack of opacity, that it would assure the officer in her living room that she would be shedding light figuratively, too. Though she didn't know if that _was_ her intention at this point.

“You want some coffee or something?” she asked, trying to sound as chipper as possible.

Bodine turned around, breaking his gaze from one of her large paintings to face her.

“If it's not too much trouble,” he offered.

“Not at all,” she said, still trying to muster a polite air even though she was suddenly very ill at ease not only at his presence but at _him._

He had a swagger about him that she didn't like. Not only was he physically imposing with broad shoulders and a barrel chest, but there was something behind his eyes that was...smarmy. She walked to her coffee maker and set about filling the pot with water and carefully measuring out the right amount of grounds.

“You take it black or do you like cream and sugar?” she asked.

“Black's fine Ms. Robataille,” he answered quickly. “So, uh, you're an artist are you?”

Louise forced herself to look him in the eye.

“On my better days,” she said, forcing a warm smile and flicking the coffee maker on. She tried to suppress a flinch at her use of that tired cliché.

He chuckled politely.

“Well, I suspect that if you asked just about _anyone_ in this city, they would answer much the same,” he said taking a seat on her recliner.

Louise seated herself across from him on the couch.

“I'm sorry I'm still in my sleep clothes. I wasn't expecting company.”

“Quite alright, ma'am. You get used to seeing people in less in my line of work,” he chuckled.

_He laughs at his own jokes. This isn't a good sign._

“Um,” she smiled and shook her head as she squeezed her eyes shut. “I...I already talked to the police about this, I'm not sure I can tell you anything else.”

Bodine leaned back in the recliner and nodded at her, taking her in. She clutched the front of her robe, locking eyes with him now.

“It's pretty standard procedure for us to keep coming back in the middle of an investigation. Believe me it's just as tedious for us as it is for you,” he said, chuckling his stupid, menacing, totally unconvincing chuckle.

Louise shot him a weak smile.

“Mm,” she said nodding.

“You should know that, though, am I right? I mean, I looked you up in the system and saw that you were involved in a kidnapping-assault just seven months ago.”Louise felt her face fall. “I'm sorry to bring up past traumas, but you must know how...anomalous it is for lightning to strike the same place twice. And in such a short period of time,” he clucked, shaking his head at her with false sympathy.

Louise's thoughts were swimming a little now. Of course she fucking knew that it was anomalous. And this fucker didn't even know that half of it given the fact that the haphazard version of witness protection that she was involved in had effectively erased her prior dalliance with the criminal element of San Andreas. But if he was angling for information on anyone other than her, (read: the three men who had been the _common denominator_ as Trevor had put it), he wasn't going to find much.

The incident with Kieran O'Dell had primarily been about her. No, she hadn't been responsible for the death of his brother. That had indeed been the unholy trinity, but she had gotten herself out of that one. They weren't yoked to her escape.

“Well, you know I once heard that insane coincidences are pretty much bound to happen with so much randomness in the world. Something has to disrupt it once in awhile. Besides, some people just seem to have all the luck. Mine was just...not the kind you want,” she replied flatly.

“Sure,” he said nodding and staring her down. “But even so, Ms. Robataille, as a law enforcement agent, it's not exactly becoming of me to brush something off as a _disruption of randomness_. It's my job to look for connections.”

“I appreciate that, Lieutenant. But it's not becoming of _me_ as a survivor of those _traumas_ to dwell on it and assume that there's a target on my back. That's not exactly conducive to moving on with my life.”

The coffee maker hissed with steam as the last drops of coffee trickled into the top of the pot. Louise quickly rose to her feet and walked back into the kitchen and retrieved each of them a cup.

“Well, it sounds like you're doing a fine job of processing everything that's happened to you, Louise. May I call you Louise?” he called to her from his seat.

“Sure,” she said, carrying the cups back around the counter and into the living room, handing him one on her way back to her seat. He waited for her to set her cup down on the coffee table before he dropped the first bomb on her.

“Did you know the men that took you from the bank, Louise?” he asked curtly.

She looked up at him and narrowed her eyes.

“No way,” she said. “I was like anyone else in that bank. I already went over this-”

“Like I said, Louise,” he said, taking a sip from his cup, “I'm just performing my duties. You're sure that you didn't know them?”

Louise didn't like how her name sounded coming from his mouth. She leaned over and grabbed her coffee cup. She needed something in her hand, something to anchor her. She took a sip and locked eyes with him again.

“I'm positive, sir. Besides, there's no way that I could identify them anyhow. They were wearing masks.”

“They always do,” he shot back. Louise winced and immediately regretted it. Bodine seemed to take notice. “Now, you said in your statement that they dropped you off in the Chilead State Wilderness, correct?”

“Deep in the Chilead,” she replied monotonously.

“And that you got lost for two nights.”

“Correct.”

“You know, that wilderness is full of hikers, Louise. It's kind of strange that you didn't run into anyone that could have helped you.”

“I was well off the beaten path, sir. I'm pretty sure that I went in a circle and then I spotted a mountain lion. I walked around looking for an open area away from cliffs, near some water. I didn't find one, so I waited until sunset so that I could walk as far due west as possible before it got dark. I didn't make it to a trail before I stopped to rest. It was getting dark by then, so there wouldn't have been many hikers around even if I had.”

Bodine cocked an eyebrow at her.

“And you slept in the woods that night?”

“I didn't sleep at all that night. It was too cold. I waited until sunrise and started walking again but I had to stop and rest after four or five miles. Then I got up and found a clean stream and got some water and cleaned myself up so that if there were any more animals around, they wouldn't pick up my scent as easily. I walked until sunset and then I found a clearing and slept there. When I woke up, I walked all day until I got to that truck stop and that's when I finally got some help.”

Bodine sighed.

“You know I checked out the map of that area, and as far as I can tell, you would have hit a trail if you were still heading west...”

Louise stirred in her chair, but trusted that she was wearing her best poker face.

“That's just my stupid luck, Lieutenant. But the sun was pretty high in the sky by the time I started walking again so it was hard to tell which direction I was headed. I was also trying to stay downwind of the treeline in case there were any predators, so I was probably zigzagging a lot.”

Bodine nodded.

“That's quite a story.”

“It's the same story as before, told to the best of my recollection, sir.”

His eyebrows shot up at her in a way that skeeved her out in how charming it might have been to someone that wasn't her. He took another pull from his coffee cup as did she, neither one of them averting their eyes.

“I'm surprised that you still had your personal effects when you got to the truck stop. You're purse, your keys, your phone...”

“The robbers tossed it out of their vehicle after they'd gone through it. The lining in my purse was ripped and the phone slipped through, so they couldn't find it. I didn't realize that I had it myself until way after they'd dropped me off.”

“Right.”

They sat in an uncomfortable silence for a moment. Uncomfortable, that is for Louise. Bodine seemed to be eating it up.

“Well, I ought to be on my merry way. I've taken up enough of your time. I'll let myself out,” he said rising from the chair.

“Thanks for the coffee.”

Louise watched him walk around the coffee table and to the front door before he hesitated. Louise craned her body further, waiting for him to make his move. He turned to face her.

“You know, I...I haven't been able to find any records on you, Louise. Not prior to the last seven months. Your social security number didn't exist before then...”

Louise's stomach dropped. She and Dave hadn't really gone over what to do in this situation as both of them had relatively decent faith that she, as a law-abiding citizen, as someone who had taken employment at the movie studio where she was already known and wouldn't rouse any undue questions from H.R., would have no problem avoiding this very situation. She began twitching a little bit.

“I, er...” she started. Bodine stared at her expectantly. “I had to change my name and social after I...I got out of a bad relationship. The guy was dangerous and well-connected. Probably involved in some shady stuff, but I never found out what.”

“Anyone I might know?”

“I couldn't tell you. He gave me a fake name but I didn't find that out until after I'd broken it off with him.”

Bodine gave her a crooked smile.

“You have some luck, Louise Robataille. Some luck...” he said, opening the door. “We'll be in touch.”

He strode out the door.

After a few seconds, Louise realized that she hadn't drawn a breath in a while. She exhaled and collapsed backward.

 

...................................

 

Louise stood at Lester's door in Murietta Heights, listening to the pre-recorded barking dogs and tapping her foot, waiting for him to answer the door. He stared up at the security camera and held her hands out in a _what's the hold up_ fashion before he buzzed her in. She shut the door behind her and immediately made for the office.

She had done her best not to lead anyone here. She had created a fake email address and contacted him from the public library where she knew that even if she had been tailed, the stalwart librarians would not have given the cops any information as to who was using their computers and for what purpose. They were probably the last incorruptable folks in this whole godforsaken city, the last soldiers for civil liberties.

It only took him a moment to reply, which she could have predicted as he always seemed to be in front of a computer.

“Louise,” he greeted her.

“Long time no see.”

“Hi, Lest. Thanks for seeing me,” she said seating herself on his bed.

“So, what's going on? You sounded pretty freaked out in your email, though digital communication _does_ tend to cause nuance to fall by the wayside, so-”

“I need some information on someone, Lest.”

Lester looked at her with a surprised look.

“If this is about your, uh _beau_ ,” he said pulling a disgusted face, “there's very little that I can tell you about Trevor Philips that you probably haven't already heard.”

Louise glared at him.

“He's _not_ my...What the hell would you know about that, anyway?”

“I know that smart, young, attractive women are often inexplicably attracted to sociopaths...That's why so many serial killers meet their wives while they're in prison.”

Louise scoffed at him before she shook her head, dismissing the comment.

“Whatever, this isn't about Trevor, it's about this cop that came to my house the other day. He was being shifty.”

Lester straightened in his wheelchair.

“Shifty, eh?”

“Yeah, shifty, even for a cop. He wasn't one of the detectives assigned to my case after the robbery, so it was kind of weird that he showed up out of the blue all interested...”

Lester wheeled over to his computer.

“Name.”

“Lieutenant Tyler Bodine. Shield number eight two two-”

“Found him.”

Louise twiddled her thumbs as she watched Lester scan the screen for pertinent information.

“Hmm...Lieutenant Tyler Bodine...Eleven years on the force, highly decorated, impressive closure rate...Oh...”

“What is it?” Louise asked tersely.

Lester rubbed his hands together.

“Well, it appears that your Lieutenant was under suspicion for corruption fourteen months ago...An informant squealed on him for taking bribes... _Jesus_ , scratch that, _sizable_ bribes from a drug kingpin.”

“And?”

“And after he was placed on paid leave for two months, Internal Affairs had to reinstate him after said informant _and_ that kingpin came up missing, effectively destroying any evidence of Bodine's involvement...”

Louise shuddered slightly.

“So he's dirty,” she said flatly.

“They all are, but yes, his record is especially mucky, Louise.”

“Fuck.”

“Did you contact Michael?”

“Fuck no! What am I, stupid?”

Lester smiled at her.

“It would appear not. You did good, Louise.”

“Well, thanks, Lest, but I didn't come here for a pat on the head, I came to figure out who that guy was and what he was doing at my house.”

Lester sighed.

“Louise, there's not a lot I can tell you. I mean you got wrapped up with these guys again-”

“Uh, no, wrong place, wrong time. _Again_.” Louise spat.

“Yeah, I'm aware of the spooky circumstances, Louise, but the best I can tell you is that if you want to stay off of this guy's radar, you need to do what you've done twice before and sever ties. I know that you have money, why not head east or south or fuckin' _anywhere_ where you can't be tied to this kind of thing?” Lester said exasperated.

“Don't you see, Lester? _I'm_ clean, okay? The most the cops have on me is the fact that I have had more than one uncomfortably close brush with the seedy underbelly of L.S. County. I'm more worried about the actual criminals that they're after. Ya know, your friends?”

Lester leaned over and looked Louise in the eye.

“Okay. I can see that you're worried, uh...You got your phone on you?”

“Yeah,” Louise replied rummaging through her purse for a moment extracting her phone and handing it to Lester.

“Ah, good, you turned it off,” he said absently.

“I'll need to do this quickly so it can't ping off of any towers.”

“Do what now?”

“You'll see...”

Lester intermittently fiddled with the phone and his desktop computer for the better part of two minutes before he tossed her phone back to her.

“What was that?” she asked.

“I disabled every one of your phone's location reporting functions, made it so that nobody can triangulate your location from cell towers except for yours truly, and ensured that both outgoing and incoming calls will show up under fake numbers on your phone records. If anyone cares to check, which they probably will, they'll be under the impression that you live off of Chinese takeout.”

“Holy shit. You did all that in two minutes?” Louise asked incredulously. “You're amazing!”

Louise saw him blush before he dismissed the comment with a wave of his hand.

“You can contact anyone you want without them getting a lock on who, but don't discuss anything sensitive over the phone and make sure that they lead the conversation. You need to make it sound casual in case they bugged your house or something. I'll get a hold of Michael and the others to let them know what's going on.”

Louise sighed a breath of relief. She was still full of trepidation but she was suddenly glad that Lester, whom she had often wished was not such a paranoid shut-in, was taking her concerns seriously.

“You're the best. I'm sorry I yelled at you earlier.”

“Whatever. Get lost now, lady. I've got calls to make.”


	6. Chapter 6

Michael was finally, _finally_ enjoying an evening in with the whole family at his house when the text came in. They were all sitting around eating pizza and shooting the shit like they used to when he looked down to see a message from Dave Norton. He hadn't heard from Davey in a quite a few months as things had been relatively quiet save for the bank robbery, for which he had not yet been chastised for by his old FIB buddy. So, it came as somewhat of a surprise when he opened the message.

_We have a problem, Michael re: your little trip to Banham Canyon. Meet me at the warehouse by the docks in Elysian pronto._

Michael slipped his phone back in his pocket and looked around the table at his family, wishing to hell that he hadn't twisted Jimmy and Tracey's arms to stay in for one night so that they could have a nice, quiet family gathering over pizza. Now he had to be the asshole and excuse himself, no doubt inviting Amanda's vitriol.

They were finally all getting along fairly consistently, though nights like this were few and far between. He sighed before he found all of them looking at him. His thoughts had been elsewhere, so he was unsure of why three pairs of eyes were all fixed on him now.

“Well?” Tracey asked shrilly.

“Well, what?”

“Well when are you going to take us all to the island of Fiji like you said you would fucking ages ago?” Jimmy asked.

“Watch your mouth at the table, Jimmy,” Amanda chided.

“Uh, soon, soon...” Michael said.

“Everything okay, babe?” Amanda asked.

“Yeah, just...Got a message from Frank. I forgot I was supposed to meet him tonight...”

Amanda took a sip of her wine and shrugged.

“Go,” she said. Michael eyed her suspiciously. She didn't seem the least bit irritated that he had double-booked.

“What?” he asked disbelievingly.

“Jimmy's got a date with his video game console and Tracey and I were going to have a spa night.”

“Yeah, dad,” Tracey said. “You didn't seriously think that we were going to let you hang around and make us watch one of your boring old movies with you, did you?”

“Funny,” he shot back.

He looked around one more time, not entirely convinced that this wasn't some kind of trap or ruse.

“We'll be here when you get back and _I_ will be waiting for you in bed,” Amanda cooed at him with a wink.

Tracey and Jimmy simultaneously expressed profound disgust at their mother's comment while Michael smiled at her and leaned in for a kiss.

“We're not made of stone, children,” Amanda said flatly, still looking at Michael.

“Alright, family. Daddy will be back,” he said, getting up from his seat and walking out of earshot of them before he pulled his phone out and dialed Franklin.

_'Sup._

“Hey, man, I just got a text from Dave Norton asking me to meet him in Elysian.

_Same. I'm on my way._

“Good,” Michael replied. He collected the courage to say what he was thinking. Of course, being him, he couldn't say the thing that was most bothersome. Not explicitly. “We couldn't have been made, right? I mean, we covered all our bases...I thought.”

_Dave Norton's got his nasty ass finger on every damn thing we do, Michael._

“I'll be seein' ya soon, then.”

 _A'ight_.

Michael breathed deep as his wife had told him to do so many times before he got in his car and started toward Elysian. No bullshit. No drama. Just tying up loose ends. Yet again.

 

.........................

 

Franklin arrived at the warehouse just as the sun had dipped down under the mountains. He saw Michael and Dave's cars parked down the block aways and headed in through a hole in the corrugated steel fence. He hadn't gotten explicit instructions on where to go. This place looked as confusing to him as the meat plant where he'd rescued Michael all that time ago, but he quickly found an entry way up a loading dock after he'd circled the building. _Why did Dave pick this place_ he wondered.

He pushed his way through the small steel door and walked into a dim, narrow hallway. He saw a well-lit control room down the hall and started toward it. He looked down at his phone and saw that the steel walls that encased these rooms were not cell-signal friendly. He sighed and slid his phone back into his pocket. He'd been in more than one of these warehouses. They were probably just beyond that room, he figured.

The door to the control room was already ajar and he walked in and rounded a corner. He saw the barrel of the gun first and then the face of the clean cut young man holding it. He wasn't in uniform, but Franklin knew he was a cop. He hadn't had time to react before the dude started barking orders at him.

“Hands where I can see 'em. Don't try anything,” he barked.

Franklin sighed before holding his hands up.

“'Aight, man,” he said.

Another guy materialized from another corner of the room and started patting him down, finding the piece tucked in Franklin's belt in no time. He looked up to see Michael then, sitting in a chair with a third man at his back, gun trained on him.

“Michael, what the fuck!”

“It was a trick, Frank. They got their hands on Norton first, sent the text from his phone. They're holding him in another room.”

“Shut up,” barked one of the cops.

“Sit,” said another to Franklin, prodding him into a chair across from Michael with the barrel of his gun.

Franklin took a seat and looked at Michael who didn't look scared, but weary.

“What's this about?” Franklin asked.

“Banham Canyon, just like the message said.” replied Michael flatly before the three cops each belted another chorus of _shut up_ at the two of them.

 

.....................

 

Trevor had been napping when the text came in from Dave Norton requesting his presence at some shitty warehouse in L.S. He was just starting to get settled back into his beloved trailer, naturally. He wanted to enjoy it here for another few days before he headed back into L.S., that stupid fuckin' silicone and celluloid hell-hole, just enjoying the lingering smells of sweat and passion and his sweet memories until he would, inevitably head back to take care of business at the club.

He'd decided that he was going to try to get Louise to consider adopting his seminomadic lifestyle even though neither of them had actually broached the topic of what the hell they were doing. Not fully, anyway. They were definitely more than friends and now that the embargo had been lifted on their relationship, now that Louise had stated pretty explicitly that she wanted him around, he was more than _interested._ And it was also a way to keep an eye on her, little trouble magnet that she'd blossomed into.

He figured that if she was so inclined, she could teach art classes to the junkies of Blaine County. _Teach them how to scribble their feelings instead of freebasing them._ If it was half-way efficacious, it would threaten his client base, but as long as he had other irons in the fire, he didn't care.

He'd awoken to find that he'd been clutching her undies, those crazy, lacy purple undies that had started a fight that turned into something else that was far funner than a fight. The ones that he had pulled off of her at the laudromat before they went at it again, an event which had been preceded by a depressing overture, but still turned out to be pretty fucking fun regardless.

When she said goodbye, she'd told him that she'd left him something to make him think of her while they were apart, something to help him make up his mind about what he wanted. He had been expecting another drawing, but had found them sexy drawers instead. She was putting the ball in his court, now.

He rolled off the bed now and looked at the text one more time. Elysian. He could be there in under two hours, he figured. _And then maybe he would go looking for her, try to sell her on his plan_ , he thought as he blew through the door of his trailer and headed for his truck.

 

.................................

 

Louise was sitting in a stool at her breakfast bar, staring down at her phone waiting for any one of the three to return her calls, but so far, nothing.

She shook her leg and sipped her tea and every time she looked up, she resolved not to look back down at it again, but it wouldn't be long before she stole another peek at her phone. She was starting to wonder if Lester's little trick hadn't inhibited the phone's functionality.

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door, jarring her from her strange little paralysis. She walked to the door and opened it a hair to see two men standing there. One, a middle aged, bespectacled man wearing a plaid flannel and a fisherman's hat and the other with dirty blonde dreadlocks and facial piercings.

“Yeah?” she asked suspiciously.

“Is Trevor here?” asked the older guy.

“Who's asking?” Louise replied.

“We's friends of his and we took off without tellin' us what to do while he was away. That ain't like him. We was wonderin' if he was with you,” replied the younger guy through a very pronounced speech impediment.

“We found your address in his trailer.”

Louise opened the door wider and looked at them. Unless they were deep undercover, there was almost no chance that they were cops. Both of them had deep pockmarks and scabs on their faces, likely from heavy meth use, something that she was aware that Trevor was involved with but that she had tried to ignore up to this point.

“Come on in,” she said, stepping aside to let them through.

They walked in. The younger guy made himself right at home, taking a seat on the couch while the older guy shifted his gaze around the house, rubbing his hands together nervously.

“So, is he here?”

“No, he's not and I haven't heard from him in a while,” replied Louise. “When's the last time you saw him?”

“Just the other day,” replied the older guy. “But like Wade said, he didn't give us any directives for while he was away...I have a bad feeling about it...”

 _Directives. Christ, what kind of outfit was Trevor running there out in the desert,_ she wondered.

Louise nodded and looked to the younger guy seated on the couch, who smiled up at her warmly while he thumbed through one of her magazines. He didn't seem as concerned as his older friend.

“Well, I went by his, er, club and he wasn't there,” Louise said, rubbing her chin. She looked up to meet the older guy's gaze. “I didn't catch your name,” she told him.

“It's Ron. And that there's Wade,” he said gesturing to the younger guy.

“Hi,” chirped Wade with a smile.

Louise shot him a thin smile back, though now she was worried. If a couple of speed freaks that had lived under Trevor's thumb for however long were worried about him, she figured that she ought to be to.

“Well, Ron, Wade...I'm Louise-”

“We _know_ who you are, Miss Louise,” said Wade with what Louise assumed was the closest he came to coyness.

_“Right...”_

Just then, her phone rang. She looked between Ron and Wade before she walked briskly to the counter to get it. The number wasn't familiar, but she answered anyway.

“Hello?”

_Louise, it's Lester._

“Hey...”

_Now, don't panic, but I think I've figured out where Michael and Franklin are. Trevor seems to be somewhere in the area, too. He's pinging off a few cell towers, but I haven't got his exact location._

“Oh, God...Okay, tell me what's going on,” she said.

She saw Ron and Wade looking at her with matching looks of concern on their faces.

_They're at an old sugar beet factory in Elysian. Dave Norton is there, too. I don't know who lured them there, but I can guess it's Tyler Bodine and company. I'm getting signals from some lo-jacks on the L.S.P.D. unmarked cars in the area._

Louise could feel her heart skipping a beat. She swallowed hard and breathed deep.

“Okay...Uh, two of Trevor's friends are here looking for him. We're coming to yours. Can you get someone else to help us to go and get them?”

_Louise, you are not going in there._

“I don't have a choice, Lest. Unless you can round up a team like fucking yesterday, we're going to run out of time. So we have to do this now.”

She heard him sigh.

_Alright, I'm going to try and get a hold of as many toughs as I can. You start heading over here and make sure that you aren't followed._

Louise hung up the phone and looked at Ron and Wade who stared at her expectantly. She forced a thin smile.

“Are either you above putting down some dirty cops to rescue our friends?”

 

............................................

 

Louise could see Lester doing his damndest not to glare at her two new companions as they awaited the arrival of one more set of hands. Ron and Wade were hiding behind her, neither of them saying much.

“The only gunman I could locate to help with this is Gus Mota. You might remember him from the bank job,” Lester said flatly. He shook his head with a look of profound regret on his face. “Louise, this is a _really_ terrible idea,” he said woefully.

Louise held her hands out to him.

“Well, I don't know what our other options are, Lest. I know it's goddamn amateur hour, but fuck knows what's already happened to them.”

“We _ain't_ amateurs,” said Wade. “Me and Ron's been in lots of fire fights.”

Louise ignored him.

“Louise, there's no sense in you getting yourself killed,” said Lester firmly.

Louise crouched down in front of Lester's wheelchair.

“Lester, I have to do this. If I sit back and do nothing I will never forgive myself if something happens to them, okay? I know I'm not really...built for this kind of thing, but I need to try, even if it's the worst fucking decision I ever make in my life...”

Lester stared hard at her. She stood up, never taking her eyes off of him.

“Gus is getting some lightweight armor and firearms...Do you know how to shoot?”

“Both my folks are from the deep South. Yes, I know how to shoot.”

“Right,” he said.

He turned to his computer and pulled up the warehouse floor plans. Louise hovered over his shoulder as Lester pointed to the floor plans, which were detailed and confusing, but Louise was trying to clear her mind of doubts and fears so that she could listen.

“There are three points of entry. I suggest that you put one guy near each of the main entrances on the north and east sides of the building while Gus goes in by that loading dock...That's probably where the heaviest guard will be and Gus can handle himself just fine.”

Louise turned to Wade and Ron.

“You guys okay with that? You'll need to keep those entrances clear.”

Ron nodded solemnly while Wade just wore a blank expression. Louise sighed. She felt bad that she was dragging them toward what might have been their doom, but she didn't see any other options. Plus, they could always make a run for it if it got too heavy. She turned back to Lester.

“Where am I going, then?”

“There's roof access on the north end of the building. There's an intake vent up there. You're tiny, so you should be able to slide through there. There's suspended air ducts and catwalks all around the building. A building that old will likely have galvanized steel ducts, so they should hold your weight just fine, but you need to be quiet because if you make too much noise, the sound will carry and give away your position...You're not afraid of heights, are you?”

Louise was staring at the screen, unblinkingly.

“I'm not terribly fond of heights, but I don't really see any other choice.”

“You'll need to be quick about it. There's no telling where in the building they're being held, so keep your ears open and your nose clean while you do this.”

A buzz rang out just then, which made Louise jump a little bit. She and Lester looked up at the monitor to see a tall, swarthy man standing there holding a large army duffle. Lester buzzed him in and a moment later, he appeared, shifting his gaze all around.

Louise stood up and he made his way toward her.

“I remember you,” he said flatly.

“I should fucking hope so,” she responded in kind.

He narrowed his eyes at her.

“You sure you know what you're getting yourself into? I don't usually work with _amateurs,”_ he said, glancing at Ron and Wade.

“I don't make a habit of this kind of thing. I just want to get them out alive. If you want money, I can get you that. Name your price.”

“I ain't got a price, lady. Those guys ain't my friends or nothin', but they keep me in business. This one's on me.”

Louise looked down at the duffle.

“Clock's ticking. Let's go.”


	7. Chapter 7

“What the fuck did you just call me you spineless little fuck?” Trevor spat through gritted teeth at the squirrely little hoodlum outside the bodega.

He had stopped to grab himself a beer to put down before his meeting with Dave Norton and the other two and he'd practically mowed the guy over on his way out of the corner store.

“I called you a motherfucker, motherfucker!” shouted the brazen young shitheel.

Trevor had a good foot on him he now saw as he advanced on him. He got one hand around his pencil neck and shoved him into the wall of the store, knocking his head on the wrought steel bars on the window. He could see the shop keep staring at him wide-eyed through the neon sign before he looked back into the kid's eyes.

 _“Only one person has ever gotten away with calling me that and she ain't here, you scrawny fuck,”_ seethed Trevor.

The kid was staring at him with terror in his eyes now. Trevor could feel his wind pipe underneath his rough palms. It vibrated as he spoke.

“Hey, man, I'm sorry,” the little guy quaked. “I didn't know...”

“You didn't fuckin' know that it's rude to hurl abuses at a stranger? You ain't too goddamn bright, then...”

“Man, I'm just a kid. I'm only seventeen. I go to Elysian Alternative man...I, er...” the kid stammered.

_Elysian Alternative._

Trevor automatically released the kid's neck. He looked the kid up and down. _Christ, he'd probably been one of **hers**. He couldn't snap his neck and then look her in the eye after._

He shoved his finger in the kid's face. “You have one person to thank for my sparing your sorry life, cheese dick. And that's Louise Bisby...”

“Miss Louise,” whimpered. “I know her.”

“And you're goddamn lucky you do,” Trevor growled at him, cracking his beer.

He took a long pull as he walked back to his truck.

"Hey, she teach at a prison now or somethin', man? You meet her in the joint?" the kid called after him.

Trevor plainly hadn't taught the kid any manners, but he ignored the remarks. It was probably time he quit procrastinating anyway. He got behind the wheel and finished his beer in one, two, three long gulps. He tossed the empty can into the passenger seat and put the car in gear before gunning it.

He laughed humorlessly as he sped down the street. He half wanted to tell Louise what he'd just done, to tell her that she'd unwittingly ran interference outside that store, but he knew better. That wasn't going to get him laid. She was too much of a do-gooder to understand. She harped on him for liking _Impotent Rage_ for chrissakes. Her body count of one wasn't about to make her see things his way.

He was having one of those moments, those sudden crushing doubts about the him and her. Her and him. The two of them. Together. Still didn't sound right in his head. It was one thing to have to rescue her time after time but quite another to keep her close, where she would see everything that made his life his. The less-than-clandestine bloodbaths, border runs, drug deals. That was his fucking bread and butter. It was all he knew how to do anymore.

What if she _was_ there at the ready? How long would it take before she couldn't stomach it? Before it got too real for her righteous ass?

 

.............................

 

The four ragtag rescuers sat in Gus's car, catty corner and a block away from the warehouse. They couldn't see any of the entry points from here because of a huge corrugated iron fence that ran the perimeter, but Louise was taking mental note of each of the directions. The fence looked old enough to have rotted out in some places. The light ballistic vest that she wore under her black hoodie was making her posture rigid, so even though she wanted to be crouched down as they surveyed their surroundings, she was finding it difficult to keep her head down.

“Okay,” she sighed. “Everyone clear on what they need to be doing?”

“Yes,” answered Ron and Wade in somber unison from the back seat.

She turned to Gus.

“And you?”

“I'm gonna look for those guys on the ground while you provide support from on high. Keep me covered and we should be out of there in no time.”

Lester had outfitted them all with ear pieces through which to maintain communication. Louise was trying not to tug at her ear and loosen it. Or to chuck it purely because she thought it was dorky as fuck. 

“You gonna be able to carry all those guns?” she asked, gesturing to the remaining pieces in the duffel, one apiece for their rescues to defend themselves.

“It's light stuff, won't be a problem.”

“Okay, let's move now,” she said. “I'll go first and tell you when I'm in.”

Louise opened the passenger side door and started to walk briskly toward the building, stealing a quick glance back toward the car. It was dark and the street wasn't well-lit, which would have been bad, normally, but in this case, Louise was glad that the city government was cutting corners. There was nary a soul on that stretch of road. They hadn't passed a working girl for the half a mile.

Louise could smell the salt and boat fuel wafting in from the docks. She made it to the fence and stopped to listen, having to wait until the noise from a barge horn subsided. When she was satisfied that she was alone out here, she found a hole in the fence and slipped through.She immediately spotted the ladder to the roof. _Boom._

She looked around one more time, spotting nobody and ran to the building, starting up the ladder. When she reached the roof she hunched over and walked briskly to the duct. She slid in feet first and braced herself so as not to make any noise. She quickly found herself on the catwalk, which had no rails. She felt a little dizzy suddenly, but she crouched down and looked over the dim floor of the warehouse. Just as the plans had indicated, she had found herself in a room full of rolling crates adjacent to what was meant to be the room with the sorting equipment.

“I'm in. Go now,” she said to the others.

She crawled across the cat walk until she crossed a wall that separated this room from the other and that's when she heard the voices. She looked down to see three men across the floor, two of them cops, each with his gun trained on the seated man. She squinted. It was Dave Norton looking weary from where she sat. It looked like he had a nasty cut on his forehead.

“They're holding Dave Norton in the mechanical room, center of the warehouse.”

 _Do you see the others?_ she heard Gus ask.

“Not yet,” she replied.

She reached back and touched the grip of the automatic pistol in the back of her waistband to make sure it hadn't fallen out. The silencer she had slid into her sleeve. She kept crawling until she reached a juncture where she could climb onto on of the ducts, obscuring her from view. She gingerly hopped onto the duct and started army crawling, trying not to look straight down, focusing instead on Dave Norton.

She saw Tyler Bodine emerge from the control room behind the other three just then.

“We have Clinton and De Santa in Control Room B, east side of the building,” Bodine said to his lackies. “We're just waiting on the other two. Philips should be arriving any minute. We haven't located Mota, but I don't imagine he'll be too slippery. Soon as we get the others to talk, we'll take care of 'em and then we'll go find Mota.”

“They have Michael and Franklin in Control Room B on the east side of the building, Gus. Can you get to them?” Louise whispered.

_I'm on my way. There's two cops standing guard. Gotta take 'em out. Sit tight._

“Agent Norton,” said Bodine, “I have to tell you, it is an honor to meet such a celebrated federal agent, I can't tell you.” His voice was dripping with false humility.

“Any sign of Trevor?” Louise whispered.

Not yet, Louise came Ron's voice.

“Unfortunately, your, uh, indiscretions, your policy of _turning the other cheek_ have not served you well up to this point and I'm afraid that your little crew has cost you dearly.”

“What the hell do you want?” said Norton wearily. “You want your money back, you corrupt little fuckin' bottom feeder?”

Bodine belted out a hearty laugh.

“No, this ain't just about the money, Agent, it's about insurance. As long as those three goon buddies of yours are active, none of my banks are secure.”

 _“Your_ banks?”

“Yes, _my_ banks,” spat Bodine. “I have holdings in four banks in L.S. County and I'm looking to expand. Your guys are a liability. And since you are their protector, that makes _you_ a part of the problem.”

“I haven't done them any favors in over a year, Lieutenant.”

“I ain't buying that for a second,” Bodine snarled. “Soon as we get the three core members of San Andreas's most wanted, we're going to break 'em and find out where they're keeping my money and then we're going to take you all on a little ride. 'Course you won't be alive to enjoy it...”

 

...............................

 

Trevor pulled up behind Michael's car on the dark abandoned street.

This was the place, no doubt. Kind of a weird fuckin' place for such a meeting. He didn't see what was wrong with the oil derricks. No matter.

He hopped out of the truck and across the street, rounding the corner into the inside of the corrugated steel fence. He passed the narrow wall of the building and rounded the corner and was almost startled to see a figure in the shadows.

He stopped abruptly, pulling his gun from his jacket. He kept his eyes on the figure. They were armed whoever they were. He crept toward him steadily, staying close to the wall before he saw it... A fucking fisherman's cap. On the head of a twitching, shaking man wearing a fuckin' flak jacket on the outside of his flannel, a small automatic weapon in his hands. _Oh, what the fuck is this now?_

He put his gun down and marched stiffly over to where Ron was standing.

“Ronald? What the fuck are you doing here?” Ron gasped and looked at him.

“Trevor,” Ron hissed.

“That don't answer my question, Ron. What in the fuck are you doing out of Sandy Shores?”

Ron motioned for Trevor to keep his voice down.

“Trevor, this meeting was a set up. They got your buddies Michael and Franklin inside. That FIB agent, too!” whispered Ron loudly.

 _“Fuck,”_ spat Trevor.

“I need to tell her you're here,” Ron said absently, holding his hand up to his ear.

“Are you having a psychotic break, Ron? Who's ' _her_ '”? Ron ignored him.

“Louise, Trevor's here.”

Trevor's gut felt like it had just imploded. He grabbed Ron by the collar and pushed him into the wall.

“You did _not_ just say the name 'Louise', Ron,” Trevor said mostly trying to convince himself that he simply had her on the brain and that it was causing auditory hallucinations.

Ron looked up at him wide-eyed, turning his head as though he was getting ready for Trevor to punch him.

“Sh-she's inside. She found out about the setup and nobody could get a hold of any of you and she got this together at the last minute, so-”

“What?” barked Trevor.

He pulled the earpiece out of Ron's ear and held it up to his own.

“Louise?” he said through gritted teeth.

_Trev?_

“What the fuck are you doin'?”

_Don't freak out, 'kay? Michael and Franklin are in here somewhere. Gus is almost there. There's a bunch of cops..._

“Where in the fuck are you, Lou? I'm coming to get you,” he said, holding his gun up now as he strode past Ron and kicked the door in.

_No, Trev. There's cops all over, don't come in here!_

“Where the fuck are you?” he repeated.

_They don't know I'm here..._

“I could give a fuck, now give me your position!” he barked as he strode through a narrow corridor, listening for voices now.

_Oh my God, I can hear you from up here, keep your voice down!_

"Where is _up here_ , Louise?"

 

...........................

 

Michael could see that Franklin was as antsy as he was now.

Now, it was hard to say if either of them really _wanted_ for Trevor to show up. On one hand, it was Trevor's arrival that was supposed to maybe possibly seal their fate and on the other hand, Trevor was a ruthless fucking freak that would at least give them the satisfaction of mowing as many of these dirty fuckin' pigs before they all got put under, assuming they couldn't find a way to get themselves out of this.

Michael wasn't really afraid. Actually, he was glad that he had come since the people that he'd pissed off had shown up at his house before and this way his family would be kept out of the line of fire. Of course he regretted leaving this loose end open, though he couldn't quite conceive of how they had been made. Even more strange, he was now harboring a weird superstitious belief that if he hadn't been so insistent on the Banham Canyon job being quick and clean, they might not be dealing with this shit show.

Franklin had a look of resignation fixed in his features now. He didn't look scared either, but he was wearing the thinnest layer of the frustration that Michael was feeling on his face. Michael didn't have much time to dissect Franklin's mental state, however. Before he could fully comprehend what it was he was seeing, a figure emerged and a split second later, the cop at the door was face down, a thick pool of blood forming where his face met the floor.

Michael and Franklin both hit the ground as the other two cops returned fire at the doorway and it couldn't have been more than ten seconds later that the other two cops each got one in the chest and between the eyes, respectively. Michael looked up to see Trevor striding into the room with a crazed look on his face, followed closely by Gus Mota.

“What the fuck, T?” barked Gus. “I was signaling you to wait.”

“No fuckin' time,” Trevor spat back at him, turning toward Michael and Franklin now. “Get up, grab guns, and get out there. We need to find Louise.”

“They have Louise?” Michael gulped.

“I don't fuckin' know. I had her on the earpiece until a few minutes ago. She ain't answering now,” Trevor huffed, picking up a firearm from the side of one of the felled cops.

Gus threw his duffle down and pulled it open to reveal a small cache of firearms. Franklin immediately pulled out two guns, tucking one into his jacket as he stood.

“The fuck you mean, T?” Franklin said incredulously.

“Long story, but Louise and your boy Lester threw this little outfit together as soon as she heard what happened,” Gus answered.

“Story time's over. We need to go get her.”

Michael grabbed two firearms and followed the rest of them out the door.

 

 

..............................

 

As soon as they all rounded to corner into the warehouse proper, Trevor immediately locked in on what he was guessing were the two lackies and took them out in a matter of seconds before any of the three cops standing there were made aware of their presence. It did the job.

The other cop hadn't been prepared, hadn't had his weapon drawn, but as soon as Trevor saw him go for his weapon, he took cover behind a conveyor belt. Louise was still quiet and there was no fuckin' way he was going to be able to find her from back here. He looked over to see Michael, Franklin, Gus, and a newly liberated Dave Norton shooting into the far part of the warehouse at the same time that he heard that the return fire had increased substantially. _More fuckin' cops._

He hadn't realized what Louise meant when she said the place was _full of cops_ and had chalked it up to her being dramatic as she sometimes was, but now he realized that wherever she was, she had probably been made aware of the seven or so additional cops that were now besieging them with fire. The other cop that had been standing there had escaped, it would appear. _Fuck._

Trevor hurried over to Franklin and took cover next to him and began firing at the rest of the cops that were slowly advancing on them. The only significant light source was coming from the barrels of their guns and it was hard to hone in on any of the encroaching targets.

“Any sign of Louise?” he yelled at Franklin over the sound of the guns.

“Naw, man, none!”

“Motherfucker!”

“We gotta hold these dudes off, man. You can't run into that fuckin' fire now!”

Trevor glanced up to see that a few of the cops had either been killed or incapacitated, but there were still at least four returning fire. It was a fair fight now, but the enemy had the light advantage and they were getting closer.

The very brief thought crossed his mind that it must have been a miracle. That that big hunk of galvanized steel, the air duct, had come crashing down to the floor where those other cops were standing crushing two of them beneath it. But no, it was no miracle. It was gravity helped along by a tiny human, silhouetted in darkness, who was now running against the far edge of the wall along the ducts up there, away from them.

It was her, he realized, but not before she disappeared on the other side of the wall. He glimpsed her briefly in the light before she was gone. That had bought them some time. As dark as it was, the sight of their crushed buddies had briefly disarmed the two remaining cops for long enough that Franklin and Dave took advantage and put the two remaining cops down. And then there was quiet.

They all waited for more unseen enemies, but after a moment, when they didn't come, Trevor hopped over the barrier and ran toward where he'd seen her, glancing at the dead cops littering the warehouse floor. He ran to the spot over which he'd seen her and looked down to see an earpiece on the ground. She hadn't responded because it had fallen out. Or she had pulled it out herself, but either way, it was clear that it wasn't just his imagination. She had been there.

“She headed that way! Let's fucking go!”


	8. Chapter 8

Louise's adrenaline level was through the roof as she sat crouched in the back of the car, which, along with the near total darkness, was a mercy that she had on her side. Seasoned criminals and cops and criminal cops would likely have lost their edge after some time. But as soon as she had seen Bodine escape on foot, after she had shot the suspension cables to the free-floating section of air duct in the middle of the warehouse, her legs felt like air as they carried her across the air duct and then the catwalk, and then out of the building's exhaust vent. Her arms were strong as she braced herself and slid down the ladder to the side of the building, not bothering to climb down one step at a time.

As soon as she hit the ground, she ran as fast as she could around the corner and to the far side of the building, immediately recognizing the dark blue sedan. Bodine's unmarked car. She had looked past him to see it the day that he came to her house, so she recognized it right away.

A moment later, Bodine climbed in, breathless and huffing. He immediately started the engine and peeled out, driving right through a section of fence to get out onto the road. Louise quietly pulled herself up from the back. She felt the barrel of the gun that she was holding press into the pink flesh of his face.

“Get onto the freeway and pull off onto El Burro Boulevard.”

He gasped.

“What the fuck are you doing? Do you know who I am? I'm a _cop,_ lady.”

“Yeah, I remember. As soon as you get to El Burro, I want for you to turn off. We're going to the southern tip of the Palamino Highlands. By the water.”

“Who the fuck are you?” he snarled at her.

“I already know your car is lo-jacked, but I don't imagine that you radioed anyone for help. That wouldn't be good for you. Er, it wouldn't look good. With all those dead cops back there, I mean.”

“What the fuck do you want?”

“I told you already. There's the entrance ramp.”

“No, I mean why are you doing this?”

Louise sighed as he pulled onto the freeway.

As simple a question as it was, the answer wasn't really simple and besides that, she wasn't perfectly sure what she wanted. All she knew was that with that many of his colleagues in his pocket, she suspected that he could get more if was able to weasel his way out of punishment like he had before. And in this city, anything was possible.

“You tried to kill my friends. Four of them. You're a problem.”

She saw him hold his breath for a minute. He didn't turn to look at her, he kept his eyes on the road, but something struck him at that moment.

“Wait a minute...I know you...You're Louise. The hostage!”

“Yep.”

He chuckled.

“I fuckin' knew you were involved.”

“Yeah...As a hostage,” she replied dryly. “Exit's coming up, stay right.”

“No, no, no. As an _accomplice.”_

Louise sighed. Even though he was dead wrong, there was no way that he would believe the truth. It really was too far out there and she didn't really feel like telling him her life story. She was going to let him believe whatever he wanted. To let him be right in his own mind.

 

...................................

 

“T, calm the fuck down. Last time you saw her she was fine. Let's just find a fuckin' way to cope with this, okay?”

Michael knew that his tone was in no way placating. If anything it was the opposite, but Trevor had that look in his eye. That look that said if he didn't get what he needed, he was going to eat the fuckin' sky.He paced in front of his truck. They'd had the presence of mind to leave the area after the shootout, once they were satisfied that Louise wasn't there. Now they were standing outside a mini-mall in South L.S. trying to figure out their next move. Franklin stepped to where Trevor was pacing.

“Look...Trevor...That cop, the ringleader...”

“Tyler Bodine,” called Dave bitterly from where he leaned on his own car, holding a rag to the cut on his head.

“Yeah,” Franklin said. “He got away...Louise chased him. She ain't got her phone on her. That's where we at right now, but Lester's lookin', man. He's gonna call us back soon as he gets a hit on that car he was drivin'.”

Trevor had stopped pacing but now he was twitching. He looked at Gus.

“Why the _fuck_ was she even there in the first place?” he snarled.

Gus held his hands up defensively, his tongue planted in his cheek.

“Hey, man. Lester tried to talk her out of it, but she insisted. Trust me, man, she was fuckin' scared but she said if we didn't do it, you were all gonna get killed. Nothin' I could'a done to stop her.”

Trevor gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut.

“What the fuck is taking Lester?” he shouted.

They all stood there for a moment, each one either soaking in or trying to deflect the palpable tension between them.

Trevor had sent Wade and Ron back to the club, disgusted with both even though he knew those simple saps weren't really to blame. Now it was the five of them, just waiting for a call in this empty parking lot. A call that came a moment later to Franklin's phone.

“Put it on speaker,” demanded Trevor.

“Lester,” Franklin said, answering the phone.

_I got a hit on the lo-jack. Bodine is in the Palamino Highlands, the southern part. Take El Burro Boulevard a quarter of a mile off the freeway. He's right by the water. I'll call you if he moves._

“The four of us go. Gus, we need you to hang out in case we hear something else on Louise. Davey, you're coming with us.”

 

.................................

 

Louise sat on the hood of the car with the gun trained on Bodine, who stood in the headlights facing her.

“So what are ya gonna do, Louise? Shoot me?”

Louise sighed and considered the question for a moment.

“I'm kinda hoping that there might be a way that we can work this out _without_ me having to shoot you, actually.”

He snorted at her. There was that cocky sonofabitch again.

“I knew you didn't have it in you. You've never killed anyone in your life.”

“That's actually not true. I shoved a guy off a cliff one time. And I'm fairly sure that I'm at least partially responsible for a couple of those dead cops back at the warehouse. But I didn't derive any joy from it, so...”

“You are in _way_ the fuck over your head, little girl.”

“You're not wrong about that. I was kind of hoping that this whole thing would sort itself out back in Elysian, but then you had to make a run for it, so here we are. I couldn't let you leave.”

Louise was feeling uncharacteristically calm about this whole thing, but that wasn't to say that she had any designs on killing him. The feeling was more resigned than anything. She didn't really have it in her to bluff considering the day that she'd had, so she was just sitting here, waiting for him to either make an attempt on her so that she could justify killing him or for some other answer to drop on her head from the ether.

“Why the hell are you so interested in protecting a pack of criminals, huh? Do you even know what kind of people they are?”

“Snake people.”

“Say what?”

“They're snake people. They live down in the dirt. I picked them up and then I got down there with them and then they slithered away so I picked myself up and-”

“Jesus. You're fucking _crazy.”_

“I know that," she sighed. "Even so, I couldn't let anything happen to them. It wouldn't be right after all this time. I can't really explain it.”

Louise could tell that he wanted to start pacing just then but he was looking at her tenuously, well-aware that she could pull the trigger right then and there.

“You know, if you let me go, I can get you out of the trouble you're in,” he said. “I can make it all go away and you can go back to living your life.”

“With all due respect, Lieutenant, you're not really in a position to help anyone. I mean, your shit is going to come to light very shortly and I'd rather not have my name attached to the things you've done. You're a supreme hypocrite.”

He chuckled dryly.

“Oh, _I'm_ a hypocrite, Louise?”

“Yeah. You're a crook pretending to be a cop. I know what your game is, I learned all about the bribes and the people you disappeared. And then you turn around and let them decorate your jacket? That's fucked. _That_ makes you a hypocrite.”

“Hey, fuck you,” he spat at her.

She rolled her eyes.

“For all the, uh, _unsavory_ stuff I've done, I've put away plenty more scum bags, sweetheart. The streets of this city would be far less safe for you and yours if I hadn't intervened, so I'll thank you keep your judgments to yourself.”

“And I'll thank you to quit questioning my motives, asshole.”

“You're a real cunt, you know that?”

“And you're a malignant narcissist with an inflated sense of your own moral worth.”

It's funny how melee training, whether one receives it in the military or on the police force or both has a way of etching itself into the brains and bodies of those who possess it. It's even funnier how some people on this earth become so enraged at having their shit thrown back in their face that they become anesthetized to immediate threats to their survival like, say, having a gun pointed at them.

He came at her in a blur. Literally, a blur. The outline of his body, she could have sworn, was in soft focus. That was the last thing she saw before he knocked into her, sending the gun flying out of her hand, out of sight. She reacted immediately and their tangled bodies rolled off of the hood of the car and into the grass. He was on top of her now and she could see the malicious expression plastered on his face in the headlights as he put his forearm over her neck.

She braced her hands against his arm, keeping it from crushing her windpipe. She was hanging on desperately to that very crucial inch of space between his arm and her neck. She could feel her arms giving out, so she kneed him in the groin, which disarmed him for a minute while her arm shot out from under him, to the side, searching the ground for the gun.

She didn't find the gun, though. She did, however, find something else. A lifeline laying in the grass.

 

............................

 

The four men traveled at top speed to get where they were going. They had coordinates and hope and that was it. Trevor was picking at his fingernails, bloodying his hands as he did sometimes when he felt helpless. Fucking Louise and the emotional goddamn shrapnel that she hurled at them every time she got herself in trouble. The last two times it hadn't really been her fault, he supposed, but this time, nobody had compelled her to go. She had gone of her own free will and she had ignored him and he was fucking pissed. He could have throttled her just then. Just fucking shook her head off of that tiny neck of hers.

Michael took an almost unnecessarily hard right onto the exit ramp.

“Cool it, man!” Franklin called from the back seat.

The street lights were going by in a blur. They were weaving in and out of cars and hugging the curb in some places but after a while the traffic thinned out.

“Slow it down, man...Car's around here someplace...”

The car bumped and sidled along the grass. There was no light. They had to cut little switch backs so as not to careen off of one of the little bluffs, planting the front end of the car in the dirt.

Finally, they spotted headlights a little ways off, at the waters edge. Michael gunned it the rest of the way, slamming on the brakes just before they reached the car, side-winding them. Even though the centrifugal force had sent the two men seated on the passenger side of the car into the side, nobody yelped or complained. They all just wordlessly exited the car and made haste toward the front of Bodine's.

Trevor headed up the line with the other three bringing up the rear. He walked to the front of the car. The first thing he saw has Bodine's backside. He was face down and limp. And then he looked down to see a black pair of black low-top sneakers, toes up. Her tiny legs were interlocked with Bodine's. He couldn't see her upper body, but from where he was, she looked as still as Bodine did.

“Get him off her!” Dave barked, though he didn't need to tell Trevor twice.

He was already hovering over the tangle of limbs on the ground. He rolled Bodine's dead weight off of her, casting his body to the side and, in the headlights, he could see her. Her eyes were open and she clutched a bloody rock in her hand. He crouched down.

“Goddammit, Louise,” he said quietly.

She looked at him now. She was breathing heavily but steady. Her eyes were wide as she blinked against the light. Her face and hair were sweaty and a little dirty.

“Jesus Christ,” he heard Michael sigh.

“She okay?” asked Franklin, joining him at her side.

“I dunno, why don't we ask her?” he said sarcastically, though it was hard for him to hide the shaking in his voice. “You still with us, baby doll? Or did you head back into crazy town?”

She was still staring at him, blinking lightly.

_So help me God, if she's gone catatonic again..._

She cast the rock aside and pulled herself up to a seated position, pulling her legs to her chest and shooting them all a glance before she settled back on Trevor, pursing her lips.

“I'm okay,” she said softly but resolutely. She wiped some perspiration from her face with her sleeve.

She met Trevor's eyes as he brought his hand to the back of her head, looping his fingers into her hair. He had half a mind to yank on it out of retaliation for what she'd put him through, but she must have read his intentions in his face because she pulled away from him and got to her feet, dusting off her backside before staring at the ground in front of her. They were all quiet for a moment. Finally she looked up and glanced around at the assembly of souls before she cleared her throat and spoke.

“Uh...” she said gesturing to Bodine's body. “I, er...I don't have anything to say for myself...”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, what is it about the stories that burn a hole in my brain and make me all paralyzed until I can write more? What is that? Aah, the agony and the ecstasy of creative expression, amirite? Lots of talky with Michael and Franklin in this'n. Next one will feature Trevor but I am handling that one delicately with the kid gloves. I hope you enjoy :)

Franklin had volunteered to take Louise home while Michael, Dave, and Trevor hung back to destroy the evidence that they had been there. Luckily, it was a secluded place, traffic was thin, and it was hidden from prying eyes. Lester had disabled the lo-jack. By the time anyone went looking for that car, they would all be long gone.

Now Franklin sat in Louise's living room, waiting for her to be done with her shower. She hadn't asked him to leave and he had some things he wanted to say to her. Or ask her. Something. They'd barely spoken since she crashed back into their lives. She hadn't responded to the message that he'd sent her the night of the robbery.

She emerged a short while later, her face free of the sweat and dirt that had graced it when they found her with a cop's corpse on top of her. Her hair was wet still. She padded across the room and sat next to him on the couch.

Franklin knew that she sensed the cold shoulder he'd been throwing her way since this new wave of chaos had cropped up. She was twiddling her thumbs now, quiet, waiting for him to speak first, he supposed. He didn't want to throw her that life line, though. Finally, after a moment, she turned to him.

“Did you follow me in here so that you could scold me with your eyes, Frank?” she asked flatly.

“Psh. When the fuck has that every been part of my M.O.?”

She scratched her cheek and shifted in her place on the couch.

“Did you have something you wanted to say to me, then?”

“Yeah. You never responded to that message I sent you that night, unless what you did tonight was your response.”

Louise dropped her head back, exasperated. She was making it plain that she didn't want to have this conversation. She turned to him again after a moment.

“I got the goddamn message, Franklin.”

“But you didn't listen.”

She stood up now and looked down at him. Her face was flushed red. He couldn't tell if it was from the shower or because she was mad.

“I didn't do what I did as an act of outright defiance, Franklin. I didn't see another way. I couldn't warn any of you because none of you were responding and I'm not exactly _friends_ with any other professional criminals, so-”

“That's how you see us, huh?” He stood up and looked down at her. “Shit, you act like we all on the same wavelength, but you still see me as a criminal, nothing more, huh?”

Louise guffawed and shook her head at him. And he knew before she even opened her mouth again that she knew his game already.

“Stop, Franklin. Quit trying to make me into a shrew because I know how you make your money. You're just putting up another fucking barrier between me and you. It's manipulative.”

“Well, tell me what my other fuckin' options are! Tell me how the fuck to keep you out of trouble!” he barked at her.

_Shit, he hadn't even **tried** to tell him that she was wrong._

“Why are you so freakin' concerned with keeping me out of trouble!” she brayed back at him.

“Well, shit. Somebody's gotta be!”

She groaned petulantly.

“We're the _same age_ , Franklin!”

“I ain't fuckin' condescending to you just because you were a mild-mannered fuckin' school teacher before we got our hands on you, Louise. I ain't condescending to you 'cause you're a woman, neither! But I think it bears mentioning that you'd never fuckin' _killed_ anyone before you met us!”

Both of them were pacing now like caged lions. They locked eyes, both of them on fire, wringing their hands at their sides.

“And so far, I haven't killed anyone that wouldn't have done the same to me without thinking twice about it, Frank,” she said in a breathy voice.

Franklin laughed humorlessly.

“But it's still the worse thing you ever done. _Shit_ , tell me, Louise. What's the worse fuckin' thing you ever done before you killed people, _self-defense clause notwithstanding_ , huh? I'd _love_ to hear this.”

Louise stopped pacing then. She was looking at him all wounded, like he'd just slapped her in the face.

“Why are you asking me that?”

“'Cause I'd like to fuckin' hear you prove me wrong, that's why. If you wasn't an innocent before, then what the fuck were you?”

Her face had softened a little bit. She didn't look hurt anymore. She didn't look angry. She looked like she was gauging his reaction preemptively. Like she was running through the worst case scenario in her head. She bit her lip.

“A snitch,” she said quietly, averting her eyes.

That's when Franklin stopped pacing, too.

“What?”

“A snitch,” she repeated in the same cadence as if he hadn't heard her.

“I heard what you said. The fuck you talkin' 'bout?”

She stared at her feet, bringing her head up slowly to look at him, but she didn't meet his eyes right away.

“I got my brother put in prison,” she said softly.

Franklin walked over to where she was standing and glared at her, trying to get her to look at him. She did after a minute, but he could tell that she was trying to look at his forehead instead.

“For what? What'd he do?”

She sighed and gulped.

“Check fraud,” she said, scratching the back of her neck. “He was working for this old lady. Mowing her lawn and taking her to the grocery store and stuff. She had a lot of money but she was...She wasn't there, mentally. He stole her check book. I found it. He was hiding it in my hope chest. He'd stolen eleven thousand bucks from her.”

Her voice was starting to strain.

“Then what happened?” asked Franklin.

“I, er...I told him that it needed to stop and that he needed to find a way to give it back but he wouldn't listen to me. Just told me to keep my mouth shut. So, I called the cops on him, anonymously. I'd covered his ass so many times with the cops, you know? I'd given him so many false alibis. When the cops came to get him, my mom was...She was sobbing. She was so wrecked that she couldn't stand up. I never saw her so heartbroken...Seeing her like that just...It made me feel like shit.”

“Well, shit, I mean...Sounds like you was tryin' to do right by that old lady.”

Louise looked at him and shook her head slowly.

“I did it out of spite, Franklin. I did it because he...Because I wanted to get back at him for torturing me for so many years. And I thought it would feel good but it didn't...”

Franklin sat down on the couch and rubbed the bridge of his nose, sighing. Where he was from, that wasn't a good look. It was punishable by exile. Nobody talked to the police, certainly didn't _call_ them on anyone. He looked up at Louise who had tears in her eyes. Obviously, she still felt shitty about it. What's more is she probably _knew_ what he thought of snitches, but she'd told him anyway.

“How old were you?” he asked.

“Fourteen,” she replied.

“Your moms must have been mad, huh? That you got him sent up?”

“He didn't tell her. We've never talked about it.”

Franklin just nodded. He didn't really know what to say to that. They both sat there quiet until the silence was too much to bear.

“You ain't still payin' for it, are you? I mean...Uh, you wasn't just coverin' our asses for fuckin' penance, right?”

Louise smiled, then, which took Franklin by surprise. It was a weak smile, aimed at his lap. She didn't look him in the eye right away.

“I might be a little fucked in the head, but I still have some self-preservation instincts, Franklin,” she said, meeting his eyes now. “I meant it when I said I didn't see any other way. I wanted to find you but I knew that Bodine was watching. I'm bad at this,” she laughed.

Franklin laughed, too.

“Here's hopin' you don't get the opportunity to get _too_ fuckin' good at it.”

“I couldn't stand the thought of something happening to you. I didn't want to feel helpless anymore.”

“I feel ya, girl,” he said softly.

They looked at each other for a minute.

“Are we still friends?”

“Shit yeah, we still friends but, uh...I'd give Trevor a few days to cool off if I was you. You kinda scared the livin' shit outta him and he don't respond too well to fear, so...”

“Noted,” she replied with a smile.

 

........................................

 

Several days after the incident with the L.S.P.D., Michael emerged from the Richards Majestic offices after a brief, fruitless meeting with Solomon about the upcoming project that he was bankrolling. He'd chosen a bad day to come, it would appear, as it was hell week in the movie business, everyone trying to get movies wrapped in time for multiple holiday releases.

Everyone on the lot seemed to be running around like chickens with their heads cut off. He walked toward his car and he was right about to get in when a familiar voice caught his ear from around the corner. He walked toward it, tenuously.

“Are you fucking serious, guy?” he heard a woman yell.

He rounded the corner in time to see an actor in an outlandish spaceman costume walking back toward one of the trailers while Louise was crouched down picking up papers from the ground. He just looked at her for a minute. He was struck suddenly by how much this scene reminded him of the first time he saw her in the parking lot of the school in Elysian. She looked the same as she had that day, right down to what she had been doing. Scooping up arms full of stuff from the pavement.

She'd gotten a haircut, he saw. She wore it the way she used to, shoulder-length, pinned back on one side. She was wearing a dress and heels, too. She'd reverted to her old ways at some point in the past week. He walked toward her.

“Fuckin' prima donna novice screen actor _motherfucker,”_ he heard her mutter.

He snorted. It was funny to hear such salty language coming from someone that looked so smart and straight-laced.

He walked toward her but she was occupied collecting the papers at her feet.

“Need some help?” he asked as soon as he got to her.

She dropped the papers again before she looked up at him. She stood as soon as she met his eyes.

“Hey,” she said rubbing her arm sheepishly.

Michael pointed to the ground without taking his eyes off her.

“I really was offering to help,” he said.

“Oh,” she said looking down. “Thanks.”

She didn't move to pick them up, though. She just stood and stared at him queerly.

“Rough day?” She let out a weary laugh.

“Uh, yeah...Everything's gone a little fucky here at Richard's Majestic.”

Michael stooped and started picking up the papers, script pages covered in chicken scratch. Admonitions of _Continuity error_ and _Bad blocking_ marred each page. Louise leaned down across from him and followed suit.

“You holdin' up okay, kid?”

Louise cleared her throat but didn't look up at him.

“Yeah, I just spent twenty minutes getting reamed by a producer for a litany of things over which I have no control. That was _after_ I consoled a weeping second assistant director. But I have a three day weekend so that's seventy two hours to decide whether or not I want to come back,” she laughed.

They quietly collected the rest of the pages before Michael handed her his stack. They stood simultaneously.

“I was actually referring to...Other considerations,” he said softly.

Louise looked at him placidly, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. Her eyes were an almost incandescent green. She just stood there with the papers tucked under her arm, no doubt letting him survey her face for signs of insanity. He would be lying if he said he wasn't doing just that.

“Satisfied?” she asked after a moment.

_Ah, that was exactly what she had been doing. Clever girl._

“There's a bean machine not far from here. Lemme buy you a cup of coffee.”

“If I drink anymore coffee today, I _will_ go crazy,” she quipped.

“Liquor then. I know just the place.”

 

.......................................

 

“So, the more whiskey tastes like rotten banana peels, the fancier it is, right?”

“You want somethin' else?”

“It wasn't a complaint.”

The two sat in loungers by Michael's pool, sipping the amber liquor. Michael was reclined but Louise sat upright, facing him.

“Whiskey's my drink. Always has been. I never thought it tasted like rotten bananas, though. A slice of heaven, certainly, but not turned fruit.”

“When did you start drinking it?”

“Gah, I dunno. I think I was fifteen or so.”

“Love at first sip...”

“Fuckin' A right, Louise,” he said with a chuckle.

A few minutes of quiet.

“Was there something you brought me here to talk about?” she asked.

Michael peered at her over his sunglasses. She had a coy look on her face, almost cheeky; It was as though she didn't want to spoil the jovial mood but still wanted to draw answers from him.

“Nothin' gets by you.”

“I just kinda thought that you would be pissed off at me for...Whatever...trying so save your skin. But you haven't yelled at me once. Not to mention that you know full well that I slept with your best friend again...”

“I didn't tell you _not_ to do either of those things, Louise. Granted, there was nothing in your past to indicate that you would plan and execute a fuckin' extraction on the fly. As for the Trevor thing, I was hoping that you'd gotten that out of your system, but now I see that it was pretty naive for me to think so. I'd very much appreciate not having to think about you boffin' Trevor, by the way. But, I gotta say...You _did_ have a pretty big hand in saving our asses. So, no harm, no foul.”

 

Louise stared at him incredulously.

“So that's it? After everything that's happened-”

“I don't ever want for you to jeopardize yourself on my account again,” he said, sitting up to look her straight in the face. “In fact, if you're never in the same room with another dirty cop or bank robber for the rest of your life, it'll be too soon for me. But you held your own and moreover, you weren't tryin' to prove anything.”

“So...”

“So I've got a young woman sitting in front of me that doesn't appear to be in the throes of another psychotic break. Davey's taking care of business on his end and you seem to be back to your sweet self. Again, no harm, no foul. But don't ever fuckin' scare me like that again, you hear?”

They were looking right at each other for what seemed like forever. Louise was searching Michael's face for something, some deception or caveat. Michael was holding her gaze long enough to let her look to her satisfaction. And it was fucking hard. Because the look on her face was so raw, no poker face to be had here. It was almost painful to see her like this. Big, bright green saucer eyes that seemed to be begging him to take it back, to chastise her like he had so many times before, to insist that she was crazy.

But she wasn't crazy. She wasn't deluded, she wasn't looking for an escape, and fundamentally, she was the same person that he had met a year ago in spite of everything that had happened. She wasn't cold blooded or cruel. She was a survivor and part of survival was protecting your pack. She was a fucking she-wolf in lamb's clothing (when the occasion called for it) and Franklin, Trevor, and himself had fallen into her fold. He saw that now. He'd seen it when he'd seen her on the ground with Bodine's corpse. A seasoned goddamn force to be reckoned with, she was . And that was despite all of her vulnerability, of which there was plenty.

“Things have changed now, huh?”

“You don't know the half of it, sweetheart.”

“I don't know what I'm supposed to do.”

Michael sighed and leaned back in his chair, never taking his eyes off of her imploring face.

“There is no _supposed to_ right now, Louise. Right now you're supposed to enjoy your drink and stop thinking for a while, okay? You'll figure out _supposed to_ later.”

Louise stared at him blankly before she smiled faintly but warmly at him.

“Okay, then.”

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eep. So, it took me a hot minute to finish this chapter. Hit another wall, ya know. Yeesh. I hope you enjoy :)

“You stupid cunts! If you had a death wish, you could have come to see me _ages_ ago,” Trevor roared as he chased a small fleet of his two-wheeled rivals back toward Stab City.

The silly little fuckers were just five in number. Another pack of Lost MC sent from back east to sew the seeds for a new chapter in San Andreas. Sure, Trevor had been somewhat quiet, going about his business, making gun runs down south and keeping an ample supply of methamphetamine circulating through Blaine County, but goddammit, his reputation should have preceded him. Indeed, it would appear that he had to be seen to be believed.

Not even two truckloads full of their dead biker buddies had been enough to convince these assholes of his capabilities and their first order of business upon their arrival was to show up to his trailer and make an attempt on his life. Ron was being thrown to and fro in the passenger seat of the Canis clutching a machine gun to his chest while Wade was crouched down in the back.

“T-Trevor, shouldn't we wait and, ya know...er, take 'em by surprise?”

“This happens now, Ron. Don't try and weasel your way out of it,” Trevor seethed.

“But Trevor-”

 _“But Trevor,”_ he spat back in a mocking falsetto. “But Trevor nothin', Ron. _You and Wade_ are still atoning for getting that crazy little dryad, Louise, involved in that bullshit back in L.S.”

Wade chimed in just then.

“Actually, it would be more accurate to say that Miss Louise got us involved-” he started, mispronouncing the word _accurate_.

“Shut up, Wade!”

No, he did not actually blame Ron and Wade for Louise's reckless foray into hostage extractions involving dirty cops. He was very much aware that she had spearheaded that ill-advised little misadventure. And yes, he was also aware that she had done so out of a very strong and admirable sense of loyalty to him and Michael and Franklin and G-Man Dave. Still, if she wanted him dead, she might as well have let him get shot by a bunch of cops rather than almost giving him a fucking heart-attack. _Christ._

Trevor had immediately headed back to Sandy Shores (after they had disposed of the body and the car) to clear his head and because he was well and truly scared that his anger at Louise might cause him to do or say something that he would regret. It had been a little over a week since the last time he had seen her and, in fact, he was _entertaining_ the idea of heading back down to L.S. to have a chat with her and see what kind of sexual restitution she was willing to award him for putting him through that hell. After he'd given her a good, long talk about why the hip, new school, foxy-as-hell-but-still-fatally-practical schoolmarms of the world ought to leave the dangerous conflicts with the crooked cops to the seasoned, devil may care criminals. But of course something had to crop up, so here he was.

Besides that, he hadn't cooled completely. Once again, the thought of her perishing in a hail of gunfire was planted in his mind. Where he felt like he could control it before, when she was roped into the bullshit instead of jumping feet-first in the fire, now he knew that she couldn't be tamed, her activities couldn't be monitored. She was in too deep now.

If she had been one of those criminals, if she'd been at the oil derricks the day he'd met the son Michael never had, ready to get her hands dirty with that fire in her gut...Well, that would have been a different story. Because she would have been a different person. Not the moderately silver-tongued but otherwise mild woman he'd met a year previous. The woman with whom he had entered a very ill-advised sexual liaison. Who had shared his bed on so few occasions, but enough to make him feel like they had done it a million times before and would do again. And kissed him so sweetly and made him feel like he was wanted. Not like some of the others in his past, those who kissed him feverishly, enough to get him good and hard so that they could dally briefly in a fiendish kind of lust. Who had now decided to take it upon herself to clean up his messes, to keep him out of the line of fire even though she knew enough about his fucking C.V. to know that it was hardly the heaviest fire that he'd seen in his day.

“We just need to exterminate some vermin and then we can go out for ice cream.”

“Really?” chirped Wade.

“No.”

Finally after a good seven miles of riding their asses back to the even more dilapidated trailer park out in Stab City, the bikers disappeared behind a row of water-stained, bullet-ridden trailers and cut their engines. It would appear now that Ron and Wade were in slightly more compliant moods. Trevor really only needed them there for whatever muscle power was afforded by having two quaking cowards in the Canis and the two of them knew their place even if nothing else could be said for them.

Trevor exited the car and walked rigidly over to a palm tree, cocking his gun and keeping an eye out for the five bikers.

“Ya fucks got any last words before I send your candy-asses to hell?” he called out.

_“We know who you are you fuck! Nobody fucks with the Lost!”_

Trevor let a throaty laugh escape his throat.

“You could'a fooled me! I culled two heapin' herds of you assholes before your leather-clad overlords sent me you amateurs to contend with!”

It would appear his sardonic cheek had agitated the enemy.

 _Rat-a-tat-tat_ went the instigating fire, which Trevor returned.

_Kaboom-kaboom._

The fucking cheek on these bastards. The very balls it must have took, however jellied and useless those balls were.

Trevor ran from the palm tree and took cover behind a hollowed dune buggy, returning fire before one of them rushed him. The runt, no doubt.

“Trevor, watch it!” Ron cried.

Trevor put the underling down with a well-placed blast of shotgun fire. And the rest of them were not unlike gnats, really. Occasionally having the gall to show their faces, their sun-and-wind torn black leather that might as well have been day-glo orange. _Five little fucks I barely knew. One. Two. Three. Four._ Trevor knew a goddamn motherfucking piece of biker shit when he saw one. He'd put down enough of them that their clothing, their haircuts, their swagger was written into his muscle tissue, piloting every one of his actions. And four was enough to tucker him out for the day. But it was the fifth.

They were saving the best for last, it seemed. Trevor stood up to meet him. He could see the guy's face, red with anger and wet with tears. The unwise but unreasonably ballsy tit could land a shot where his dead chums could not. And where Trevor Philips was concerned, that counted. Though, it counted for very little as they were all dead men and they had picked the _most wrong_ local to fuck with. The brawny fuck had picked a half-decent weapon, one with actual caliber. Even so, kid was asking for the shotgun blast to the chest that he got promptly after he'd fired one into Trevor's person.

The leather-clad turd fell to the ground mere moments after he had crossed Trevor's line of sight. Though, not before he was got. One in the shoulder. Or torso. Leg? The pain was diffuse. So searing that it wasn't concentrated. He didn't know just where he'd been hit, but it had knocked him backward. It was only one shot, to be sure. Maybe it was the speed. Or the adrenaline. Or the normal bodily process that one who is not a speed freak who is somewhat routinely hit with bullets goes through. But he could feel his body come alive. He was hit. He knew that much. It had been a while since that had happened. And the last time, he had had capable people at his side. Not fucking Ron Jakowski and Wade Herbert.

At least all of them were dead. That's what he was thinking before he got to his feet and started running. Blood pumping. Searing pain egging at some part of his body, pain that was sublime enough not to settle in one area. _Where the fuck was he shot?_ He made it to his truck. He was the tiniest bit delirious now. But only the tiniest bit. And lucid enough to have gotten into the passenger seat. Ron was at attention, alert. Good. His arm wasn't working now. He'd popped all of them but he'd left with a tiny deficit. The use of his fucking arm. He wasn't out of it just yet.

“Ronald. To the trailer," he slurred. 

 _The trailer_ being Trevor's trailer. In Sandy Shores. His...trailerrrrr.

 

...............................

 

 _“Err, okay...I think he's delirious, that's not good, right? I should call him an ambulance,”_ came a familiar female voice from the nothingness.

 _“You called me 'cause you didn't want to call an ambulance,”_ came another woman's voice, older, soothing, agitated though it was from the digital beyond.

 _“I don't want anything to happen to him,”_ said the familiar but also hysterical female voice.

_Lou._

_Lou._

_Louise Bisby._

_“Calm down, Louise. Can you do this without passing out?”_

“Yeah...I...I'm going to fix this...”

_“All your tools are clean?”_

“We boiled them and soaked them in grain alcohol,” Louise's voice said.

_“Should do the trick.”_

“W-wait. His eyes are opening...”

“Louise,” Trevor said blearily.

“Don't move, Trevor,” she said shakily.

“Louise,” he slurred again, more loudly this time.

“You have a slug in your shoulder! Fucking hold still,” she barked.

 _“I need to see the wound. Give it a little squirt of saline and point the phone at so I can see,”_ said the older woman.

“Ron, hand me that clear stuff,” said Louise. “Wade, hold the phone steady so she can see it clearly.”

Trevor groaned. He was coming to.

“Louise, what the fuck are you doing here?”

“I was on my way back from visiting my mom and Ron called me," she said exasperated but she knew that he wasn't going to calm down without a satisfactory answer. "This might sting,” she said as Trevor felt something wet on his shoulder. And also the promised sting. He hissed through his teeth.

“Who's on the fuckin' phone?”

“That's my aunt Rayline,” lisped Wade. “She was a nurse in the army...She's real good at stuff like this, so we got her on the v-chat to help out.”

 _“Mmm. Well, it ain't pretty, but it's reasonably clean. Looks like a long range wound. Louise, I think you can do this!”_ Rayline chirped.

Trevor's vision was finally clear. He could see that he was on his kitchen counter. He looked up at Louise who looked a little more pale than usual. She also looked terrified. Trevor didn't know if she was scared for him or if she was icked out by her task, but he found himself hoping that this wounded warrior thing would pay off in the sack. Because even though she was a little sweaty and her mouth was contorted in a way that betrayed disgust or trepidation, she looked gorgeous. She looked like she had when he'd first met her. He reached around her with his good arm and wrapped it around her waist, which broke her concentration long enough for her to look into his face.

“Mmm...My trusty little nurse. Uncle T likes,” he purred at her, stroking her thigh.

He was perfectly clear-headed, but his lecherous little outburst elicited a worried look from Louise before she rolled her eyes.

 _“Well, he's in good spirits,”_ Rayline mumbled. _“They get randy sometimes, Louise, you just have to grin and bear it. Alright, honey, now take the big set of forceps and pinch the antiseptic cloth between 'em.”_

Louise seemed to be complying, though Trevor couldn't really tell because he was looking at her face as she mouthed cuss words and bit her lip.

_“Okay, now this ain't gonna be pleasant and it's gonna hurt like a son of a bitch, but you need to push that cloth just inside the wound and swab it around the opening.”_

“Oh, God,” Louise said in a breathy voice as she gulped. But lord bless her, she didn't hesitate, immediately making for the counter space by the kitchen sink. She picked up the forceps and walked morosely back to Trevor as though she was bringing a switch to her angry mother. He saw her gulp before she winced and brought the surgical implement to his shoulder.

“Ah, fuck me!” Trevor barked through gritted teeth as he felt the stinging, searing pain of the cloth.

“I'm so sorry, Trev,” Louise blurted out.

“It's fine, baby,” he lied through grunts of pain. He was squeezing her waist even harder now.

 _“Very good, Louise! You still doin' okay?”_ Louise didn't answer so much as she made a small, guttural whimpering sound. Trevor wondered why nurse Rayline wasn't asking after his well-being. _“Now it's time to pull out the bullet. Take the smaller forceps and stick 'em in there and fish that fucker out.”_

Louise closed her eyes and breathed in through her nose and hard out pursed lips. She only opened her eyes when she heard Trevor chuckle at her. She glared down at him.

“Lou, I had no idea you were so squeamish. It's fucking hilarious,” he said chuckling himself into a cough.

He got his bearings and looked up at her again. She was glaring hard.

“Shut the fuck up,” she said brusquely before she reached over and grabbed the smaller forceps. She wielded them at him without breaking eye contact. And goddammit if she didn't look sexy as hell just then. She took one more deep breath before she looked at his shoulder. He felt the metal sticking into his pulpy wound. There was very little pain at first but then Louise was making slow tentative movements with the forceps which dialed the agony to eleven.

She had dropped the attitude, it would appear. She braced her hand on his chest and stared hard at his shoulder with a look of concern and concentration on her face. Trevor didn't yell. The pain was too intense, so instead he breathed hard but steady, gritting his teeth so hard that he thought he could hear them cracking in his head.

“I found it,” Louise said urgently.

_“Pull it out, nice and slow.”_

Louise did as she was told. She got the ends of the forceps around the bullet and gingerly pulled it out of the wound. She held it up an looked at it. She shuddered before tossing the forceps into the sink.

“Oh, jeez,” she whispered.

Trevor sighed a sigh of relief. He slipped his hand down to Louise's backside and gave a little squeeze.

“Good show, baby,” he said through heaving breaths.

Louise stared down at him and shook her head slowly, disapprovingly before she reached up with her slightly bloodied hand and stroked his face.

“You are crazy and bullheaded and fucking infuriating,” she said.

“Keep going,” he cooed at her pulling her closer by the wrist.

She leaned over on one elbow and draped her other arm across his torso. She stroked his forehead.

“And I never want anything like this to happen to you again.”

“That's a pretty tall order,” he clucked at her before he buried his fingers in her hair and pulled her face to his, pressing his mouth to hers, parting her lips with his, pushing his tongue into her mouth. She sighed into him and pushed back, both of them forgetting that they were in the company of two hapless droogs and a retired extra-legal nurse over the phone.

 _“Oh...I guess they're a **thing** , then. He wasn't randy for nothin',”_ thought Rayline aloud.

“Yeah, they's...er...It's cool, Aunt Rayline,” said Wade.

_“She's a little young, ain't she?”_

Trevor wasn't delirious anymore. He wasn't angry at her anymore. She was there. He wanted her. And not only when she showed up at the wrong times or the right ones. He wanted her there to fish out every bullet from every bloody, sodden wound that life inundated him with. And he wanted for her to kiss him like this every time he pulled through. Every time he was a good boy. Or the worst. Goddammit, he wanted this.

_“Sorry to break up the love fest, but you still need to excise the necrotic tissue. Grab a scalpel, Louise.”_

_“Fuck,”_ the pair of them uttered in unison.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains feels, silliness, lots of talking and a bit of the angst but check it out...I think I've made it partially over the wall of writer's block, so there's that. Comments and feedback are very much appreciated. Let me know if anything is confusing or if it's pissing you off or whatever, yo. I love to hear what you have to say.

The Canadian Border Region of America

Mid-1980's

_Trevor quietly scaled the outer wall of the little brick and mortar house on the quiet street in the center of town, looking for the window to the pink room. Or what he remembered as being a room that was completely, unabashedly covered in pink shit from floor to ceiling. The last time he had been here, he'd been toasted and now he couldn't remember which side of the house it was on. He was creeping as slowly and quietly as he could since that stupid ass dentist was actually home for once if the presence of his fancy fuckin' sedan in the driveway was any indication._

_Finally, he poked his head up and peeked in one of the windows to see the tell-tale pink walls, bedding, teddy bears and every other goddamn thing that she kept all prim and perfect in her room. He rapped on the window. He stood for a moment. He was bouncing a little against the cold. He'd only worn a flannel and a hooded sweatshirt, not realizing that it would be freezing balls. It was March for fucksake, ya know, springtime? He rapped harder. He was just about to put a rock through the window when she appeared wearing a white ruffled nightie. She glared at him through the window and he held his hands up to indicate that he wasn't fucking around. She unlatched the window and shoved it open._

_“What do you want, Philips?”_

_**“Meemeemeemeemeemee,”** he mocked. “What the fuck do you think I want? I came to see you.” _

_She crossed her arms and flipped her blonde hair. He was simultaneously disgusted and intrigued by the haughty display of superiority._

_“I have a boyfriend, Philips. You can't just show up here whenever you feel like it.”_

_“It's only the second fuckin' time I've been here, Penny. Fuck. And I don't remember you complaining last time.”_

_“That was a party, dingus. It's a school night.”_

_Trevor shoved his hand in his pockets and shifted on his feet, staring hard at the queen bee in front of him._

_“Well, I told you to meet me at the ice rink, but **apparently** you're too good for that now,” he huffed. _

_“My boyfriend plays hockey there, jack ass. Anyway, I'm done with you.”_

_Trevor let those words hit him like a ton of bricks, turning his stomach. He pulled his hands from his pockets._

_“What are you talking about?” he asked._

_Penny rolled her eyes at him. “I'm talking about the fact that you're a psycho fucking freak show that can't take a hint, Philips. We're barely even the same fucking species, okay?”_

_Trevor guffawed. Where the fuck did she get off calling him a psycho? “Fuck you.”_

_“Everyone knows what your mom does for a living, Philips. I can't exactly show up to a dance on your arm and keep my dignity, now can I?”_

_Just who in the fuck did she think she was? Nobody talked about his mother like that. Trevor's fists were balled. He could feel his fingernails digging into his palms, the blood trickling through his fingers._

_“Well, maybe we should see how much dignity you have when I tell everyone how you squealed like a pig when I finger fucked you!” he barked._

_Her eyes flashed with anger as she glared hard at him._

_“Shut up. Nobody would believe you.”_

_Trevor started walking backwards. “You know, it seems appropriate that you're named after the most worthless coin in our currency system, you spoiled cow,” he spat at her, turning around now._

_“Fuck you, Philips,” she hissed. “If you tell anyone about us, I will kill you!”_

_“I'm already fucking dead, bitch!”_

_Trevor walked stiffly in the cold night air. He wanted to punch something, but all there was in front of him was air as he sloshed through the mud back to his side of town. He should have seen it coming, really he should have. He knew she had a fuckin' boyfriend. He wasn't dense. Her stupid jockey meat head boyfriend who Trevor had heard make fun of her body in the locker room after phys ed. Some fuckin' prize he was._

_It wasn't like he really liked her all that much. She was spoiled and shallow and she was always smacking her gum. But she pretended to like him for a minute, which was kind of nice. It was nice to have someone like his fingers and mouth and not just pretending to so that he'd give them drugs. Besides that, he thought she oughta know what it was like to have a guy care about getting **her** off for once if she was gonna waste time on that asshole boyfriend of hers. It was charitable of him, really.  
_

_Trevor stopped in a barren field. He looked off into the distance and saw the lights from his part of town. The fucking power lines zigzagging this way and that, like a canopy for a trash heap. Trash like him and his. That's all they were as far as the upper-crust was concerned. Penny and her brain dead, shit-heel boyfriend. Them and theirs. The haves to his have nots. Fuck 'em._

_He made a hard left and headed east for the filling station. Curtis would be working tonight. Curtis was a stupid motherfucker and also scared shitless of Trevor. He would look the other way when Trevor pulled a gas can off one of the shelves and went outside to fill it up. And when the cops came to the gas station the next day asking questions about a charred husk of a fancy sedan and who might have been responsible and **did you see anything suspicious last night, son? Anyone come into the filling station that didn't quite belong?** Curtis would shake his head and say jack shit about it. _

_Trevor Philips didn't belong here, there or any other goddamn place, but he would slash and burn his way through life until he found somethin' good. Trevor Philips wouldn't piss on those holier-than-thou rich assholes if they were on fire but he could sure as fuck make their shit infernal. Even if it meant that he would get burned, too._

 

 

 

Louise was fast asleep, sitting up on the couch next to Trevor. Her legs were criss-crossed, arms folded, clutching her elbows. Her sketchbook was open in her lap. Her sleep face was pensive now where a half an hour previous, she had looked peaceful. He'd tried to pull her down so that she wouldn't fuck up her neck but she had rolled her head to the other side, whimpering. He'd been stealing glances at her for the last several minutes while he watched T.V.

She'd been in and out the last few days though they hadn't been alone. Ron and Wade made regular appearances. She would come in and re-dress his wound, making sure that he was eating and drinking water, barely making eye contact with anyone before she would leave to head back to work, hours away. Now they were alone and she was fast asleep. _Fucking great._

Trevor figured that she hadn't been sleeping a lot. She didn't look like she'd just rolled out of bed or anything, but she had a perpetual look of resignation on her face. Sometimes he would glimpse something beyond that look when she _did_ look him in the face, some kind of far away sadness or worry. But those moments had been few and far between. She sighed now as her eyes fluttered open. She rubbed her lips together and looked over at him.

“Fancy seeing you awake, Lou,” he grumbled.

She didn't respond but rather crawled over to where he sat and leaned over him, staring at the wound. The wound that she had been fixating on for the past few days. Looking at it more than she looked at him. Her new infatuation, the thing that she studied constantly was a fucking hole in his shoulder. Trevor had started to feel like when she had kissed him the last time that she wasn't doing it just to kiss him, but as a show of gratitude to whatever force had spared him. Or to remind herself that he was still alive in there. Now he rolled his eyes, which actually elicited a reaction from her. She stared up at his face with an imploring expression.

“What?”

“Nothin'.”

She relaxed and sat back down beside him, her arm draped across the back of the sofa, but she was still looking at him. He stared back until _she_ couldn't take it anymore.

She crawled into his lap, straddling him. Without taking her eyes off of him, she tugged at his waist band. He lifted his ass to help her out and then pulled her in close. She kissed back, deep and slow while he pulled the front of her dress open, hungrily groping her, gripping her flesh like she'd slip away if he didn't. She reached down and pulled her underwear aside as she grabbed him and guided him in. No difficulty there.

She sighed and he grunted and pulled her dress down by the sleeves. She rocked against him and he thrust upward to meet her movements, delighting in the sight of her soft flesh rippling with each thrust until she leaned down and kissed him and sighed into his face. He could feel her eyebrows pull inward, their foreheads together before she straightened up and threw her head back, reaching back to clutch his knee with one hand while she braced herself on his shoulder with the other. She rocked faster and moaned loudly.

He felt her getting close and that jarred him with another huge surge of arousal right before she made that deep, throaty shuddering sound, her stomach muscles seizing. That sent him over. He grunted and ground into her as he came hard. He could feel all his tendons contracting and relaxing, like guitar strings being plucked. After a brief moment, their panting was synchronized. He rested his hand on his stomach, but she grabbed it and clutched it to her chest, pressing it to her chin while she blinked at him slowly.

She looked penitent as she released his hand, which he then used to stroke her thigh. He was feeling positively dandy before he saw her eyes drift to his shoulder, her face falling into a concerned scowl. He looked over to see that his wound was bleeding. Not a lot, but enough to have made a little rosebud on the gauze. Louise started to pull away, leaning over toward the fridge, on which the medical supplies sat. But he caught her.

 _“No,”_ he said firmly.

“Trevor, you're bleed-”

He cut her off by wrapping his arm around her waist and flipping her over backward. She was already resisting, pressing her hand against his chest, trying to get him off of her, but he grabbed both her arms and held them above her head.

“No, Lou. No wrapping, no babying, no fixing. You're just going to _be_ here for a goddamn sec, you understand?”

“Stop it, I need to look at it,” she said quietly but firmly.

“No, Lou. Wounds bleed. It's normal, now quit fucking freaking out.”

He stared down hard at her, watching her face harden, too.

“I just wanna check on it.”

 _“Goddammit,”_ he huffed as he pushed himself off of her, getting to his feet.

“Trev...”

Her eyes were soft, so soft and wide, he could have plucked them out of her pretty little head if he wanted to. A couple of nights previous, he had caught her looking at his chest, looking for the rising and falling. The other day, he'd been cat napping and he opened his eyes to see her hovering with her ear pointed at him, straining to hear his breath.

“What's changed in the last couple of days, huh? What the _fuck_ is different, Louise?”

He heard an uneasy breath catch in her throat and now she was looking down. She opened her mouth to answer but she didn't have a fucking answer so she just shook her head slowly. “Nothing,” she replied breathlessly after a moment.

Trevor felt something rise in him, the smoke from a kind of explosion deep inside of him. She was doing that thing that she had when they were in Chumash. That thing where she kept her mouth shut, waiting for him to dredge her mind for answers with his anger. He knew that she wanted to tell him something. She wanted to be scared of him again and what was worse was that she was putting him in that position. He had been so gentle with her for so long. Because he _wanted_ to. Because she made him feel like he wanted to be careful around her and now she wanted to unmake all of that progress. It was bullshit.

He paced about now She was still looking at him with that frightened look in her eye, trying to hide it by narrowing her eyebrows at him but she was a terrible fucking faker.

“You're picking now to use your veto power, Louise? Gettin' scared or something?”

“I don't know what you're talking about-”

“I'm talking about how you've barely fucking looked my way since the day I got shot by those fucking bikers!” he shouted.

Louise rose to her feet, pulling her sleeves back over her shoulders. “Why are you yelling at me?”

He advanced on her then but stopped when he saw her flinch. He was breathing hard and ragged through his nose. Louise was making a good go of standing her ground though she was leaning backward, trying to put distance between them.

“Because I want you to-” He cut himself off. He calculated what he wanted to say to her. “I want for you to respond to me instead of acting like I'm a predatory animal that you have to feed over a wall, Lou. I want for you to _talk_ to me, tell me what the _fuck_ is going on in that dome of yours,” he spat, poking her on the side of the head.

She flinched at the gesture but regained her composure and stared back at him angrily. “I don't know what you want me to say,” she said, voice low.

He chuckled and stepped back from her. His head was swimming now. Of course, it was his tendency to become ridiculously angry in a matter of seconds at the right stimuli but she could push his buttons like almost no one else could. She was of two minds all the fucking time, it seemed. Maybe she _didn't_ know what to say but if she had some goddamn doubts, the least she could do is _tell him that._

“You ever pity fucked anyone, Lou?” he asked her, slowly raising his eyes to meet hers.

He saw her face fall and then morph into one of disgust. “What?” she spat.

“You heard me,” he said walking toward her again. “Have you ever fucked someone because you felt sorry for them?”

“You're disgusting,” she hissed, making for the door.

He caught her arm and forced her to look at him but quickly relinquished physical control when he looked at her mortified face. That didn't stop him from blocking the door, though. “I wanna know if you've ever pretended to want someone so that they would feel better about themselves? Ya know, 'cause you're into that...Making people feel better...”

“You are so fucking twisted. Why would you say that to me right after we fucked?” she scolded.

“Am I just another in a long line of pitiful assholes that caught your fancy because we were untouchable to ninety nine point five percent of humanity? Piss-proud and full of bullet holes? Fucking answer me!”

“That's not what this is...”

He could hear the venom in his own laughter. “This is a pattern for you, isn't it? I'm just one sorry son of a bitch in your queue. And I'm the twisted one?”

Louise picked her shoes up from the floor and glared at him with a hint of a tear in her eye. He wasn't going to let that be a cease-fire, though. He'd let her eyes throw him off too many times. She slipped her shoes on as she spoke again. “You can't let yourself believe that someone could give a fuck about what happens to you without them wanting to vindicate themselves.” She walked toward him. “Because you think everyone is out to get you and because you hate yourself and you want _me_ to suffer for that, so yeah, _you're_ the fucking twisted one, Trevor! Now get the fuck out of my way, I cannot be in the same room as you right now!” she shouted, jabbing her finger into his chest.

She made herself small and shoved in between him and the door, pulling it open forcefully. She tried to slam it shut behind her but he followed her outside.

_“Oh, look at that, Louise is walking away from the truth! Quelle surprise!”_

She pulled her keys out of her pocket and flipped him the bird without looking back at him. He stopped outside the fence. His pants were still hanging around his thighs. “Hey, Louise, do me a favor and call me when you _actually_ figure out what the fuck it is you want, huh? The waffling is getting _really_ fucking old!”

“That's rich, Trev. Really, coming from you, that is just-”

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“It means you've been in and out this whole fucking time. _You_ are the one that disappears whenever it suits you and then pokes your head back in when you get bored. Not fucking me! That shit is on _you,_ buddy! You are the fucking waffler! And now you want to start a fight with me because I'm scared of something happening to you.”

Trevor growled before he turned and kicked in a section of chain link, emitting a low guttural sound as he did. “Oh, so that's what this is about? Because I got shot for the umpteenth time? Tell me, baby, what makes this time different from any other fucking time? _Nothing!_ That's fucking what!”

She staggered backward. “It is different now!” she practically wailed back at him, arms outstretched and eyes to the sky. The front of her dress was still hanging open and the gesture exposed her deep purple brassiere. He wanted to cover her then but he made no motion to do so.

“How?” he shrieked back.

She stomped back toward him, sullen but still angry. “Because I love you, you...You fucker! I love you and it's...eating me alive!”

 

.........................

 

Louise sped down the interstate back toward Fort Carson. She had been on the road for a couple of hours now and she was nearing her destination as told by the distant buttes that cradled the locale. She had called Solomon, told him that she needed a few days. She had left Trevor to gawk at her with his pants sagging around his knees, his prick out, after her little outburst, didn't give him a chance to respond, didn't want to hear his response, didn't want to hear another fucking peep out of him. Just hopped in her car and drove away, not even letting herself look at him in the rear view mirror.

She'd stopped for gas at the half way point and saw that he'd sent her some messages. She only opened the first one. _Come back_ , it read. She couldn't bear to look at the others. She couldn't bear being in her own skin now, truth be told. She wanted to get out of her head. And she wanted...her mom. For some reason, she needed to be near her mother.

She felt naked and weird and cold. Embarrassed and ashamed that she'd uttered those words like that, in a moment of anger. Or at all, really. She'd wanted to say it to him plenty of times, but she didn't want him to think that he needed to say it back. Of course, she knew, he wouldn't have said it back if he hadn't meant it. He'd said it before, but only when they were screwing. Fuck. Too many thoughts.

She did have the presence of mind to tie up one loose end that was nagging her. She reached for her phone and dialed Michael.

_Hello, Louise?_

“Michael.”

There was a pause. _Louise, what's the matter. You sound upset._

“I-” Her heart had started beating rapidly. She hadn't thought about how she was going to ask him what she wanted to ask.

_Louise?_

“Michael, I need a favor...”

_What is it?_

“Trevor got...He got shot a few days ago...”

_I heard. He's still okay, right?_

“Yeah...It's...I can't look after him, though. I need to go see my mom. I need for you to go and check on him.”

_What?_

“I need for you to go and make sure that he re-dresses it so he doesn't get an infection because he isn't going to and I don't think he'll let Ron or Wade get near it but I can't be there anymore-”

_What the hell happened?_

“Promise me you'll go and be with him, please, Michael...”

She heard him sigh on the other end. _You gonna tell me what's up?_

“Promise,” she said again, more firmly.

 _Fine_. She hung up.

Twenty minutes later she was at her mother's door. Rosemary stood at the door with half a glass full of chablis, wearing a pink cashmere sweater. Her face brightened when she saw Louise but immediately fell into a worried frown when she saw the expression that her daughter was wearing.

“Angelfish...” she said softly.

“Mama,” Louise said stifling a sob. Rosemary opened her arms and Louise immediately walked into them, resting her her head on her mom's shoulder, which would be sopping with tears in a matter of moments.

 

.........................

 

Michael's stomach turned as he pulled onto Trevor's street. He hadn't been back here in ages. He had been avoiding it. This place and most especially Trevor's trailer made him feel like he was being drowned in the thick, viscous misery that was Sandy Shores, the fetid oasis for desperate hedonists and psychopaths. At least Los Santos didn't smell like the Alamo Sea.

He pulled up to the trailer and exited his car. He walked toward the yard, noting that a section of the fence was trashed, more than it had been before. He didn't know why he should be surprised. He took the rickety steps two at a time as a precaution and knocked on the door. He expected to be met with a loud expletive or the sound of a beer bottle being hurled from the other side, but instead, Trevor answered the door with bright, wild eyes. Eyes that looked first at Michael and then past him expectantly.

“I'm alone,” Michael answered immediately.

Trevor's shoulders slumped. That's when Michael saw the ugly wound on his shoulder, uncovered, surrounded by crusty blood and leaking plasma by the looks of it.

“She sent you, didn't she?” Trevor said surprisingly calm.

“She did,” Michael replied matter-of-factly. Trevor let a smile creep across his face as he nodded and gestured for Michael to enter. He shut the door and went to the fridge, pulling out two beers, one of which Michael accepted resignedly. “Mind telling me what the fuck went on here? Why Louise was doing everything she could not to start bawling on the phone?”

Trevor snickered, taking a long pull off his beer. He shrugged. “I dunno, Mikey. That girl is a flighty speaker of riddles and insanity,” he said in a sing-song tone.

“You just described yourself but in far more polite terms than most people that know you would, T. Come on, now.” Trevor used his shoulder to satisfy an itch on the side of his face, leaving a smear of dark blood on his cheek. Michael almost retched. “Ugh, come on, man,” Michael whined setting down his beer. “Where're the medical supplies?”

Trevor averted his eyes, not answering, so Michael glanced around the trailer until he saw the first aid kit atop the fridge. He walked over to it and pulled it down.

“That' ain't necessary, old friend,” Trevor scolded.

“Why haven't you been taking care of it?” Michael demanded, throwing the kit onto the counter and opening it.

“I fucking tried, Michael. But I can't see it and my bathroom mirror has been busted for ages,” Trevor answered defensively.

“So why didn't you use the mirrors on your truck?” Michael was pulling out what he assumed were the right items for the job: topical antibiotic ointment, gauze and some kind of clear rinse.

“I hadn't thought of it.”

“Bullshit, Trevor. You're just not taking care of yourself. You think you can get back at her if that nasty fuckin' wound festers. I'm hear to tell ya that ain't the case,” Michael said wielding two handfuls of medical paraphernalia at his best friend. “Sit down.”

Trevor reluctantly took a seat on the sofa after a minute of rocking on his feet. Michael kicked an overturned milk crate toward the couch and took a seat on it, glaring at Trevor now. He looked over the supplies and then at the wound, trying to orient himself to this process of cleaning and dressing it. It had been awhile and the procedure might have changed. For a minute, it occurred to him that it was surprising that Trevor was allowing him to do this, but then he quickly realized that his friend was probably just relishing the chance to make him get his hands dirty.

“I ain't trying to get back at her, Mikey. _Ah, fuck,”_ Trevor hissed as Michael squirted some rinse into the wound. He continued through gritted teeth. “But maybe I _should_ get back at her for leaving and ignoring my calls.”

Michael snorted as he cleaned the dried blood and ooze from around the wound. “Ah, lover's quarrel. I'm no stranger to those.”

“Yeah, I'm sure that your relationship with Agent Norton is fraught with 'em,” Trevor spat back sarcastically.

Michael ignored the comment, briskly wiping up the blood from around the wound. “So what'd she do?”

“You're seriously blaming her instead of me?” Trevor laughed. “Are you sure _you're_ not the one that needs medical treatment?”

Michael laughed sardonically and held his hands out. “You're right. The fuck was I thinking? Let me revise the question: How did _you_ fuck things up this time, old pal?”

Trevor shot to his feet and glared down at Michael with fiery eyes. “Hey fuck you, cupcake!” he spat.

Michael rose to his feet to meet his gaze. “Easy, T.”

“No!” Trevor shouted. “Fuck easy! Everyone always wants to take the fuckin' easy way! Well, not me motherfucker! I actually have a goddamn spine and I intend to use it!”

Michael was taken aback and simultaneously grateful that Trevor had always worn his heart on his sleeve. _Always_. It seemed that hadn't changed any time recently. Michael held his hands up in deference to Trevor's anger. “Alright, man. Have it your way. But, uh...Can I?” he asked gesturing to the wound.

Trevor huffed but it quickly turned into sighing as he sunk back onto the couch. Michael took his seat again. “I didn't come here to start a fight, man,” Michael said, trying to sound soothing. “Just trying to figure out what happened. I thought we were all friends, now.”

Trevor pressed his lips together and looked up to meet Michael's gaze. He leaned back. “I get shot, I wake up, first person I see is her. Then she keeps comin' in and out of here, trying to take care of me and shit...” Trevor said, sighing.

“And?” Michael asked, gingerly applying the ointment now.

“And she wasn't hardly looking at me the whole time. She was just obsessed with what happened, with the shooting, ya know. I mean, she didn't say so, but I could tell every time she unwrapped that fucker that she wasn't thinkin' about anything else.”

“Uh huh?” Michael replied, wiping the excess ointment from his hand with a length of gauze.

“Then the other night, we're over here and I _finally_ got her to touch me somewhere other than...” he said gesturing to his shoulder. Michael tried to hide his wince at the disclosure. “And then when we're done, she sees the thing bleeding and immediately starts in with the fucking coddling again, except this time I stop her and start demanding answers.”

“Answers about what?” Michael asked confounded.

“About whether she was with me because she wanted _me_ or if she just wanted another project. Something to fix.”

Michael was quiet for a minute, contemplating what Trevor was saying before he broke into a soft chuckle despite himself.

“What's so funny?” Trevor demanded.

Michael shook his head, still snorting. “Nothin'.”

“Out with it, cupcake.”

“I just...When I found out about the two of you-”

“And completely overreacted...”

Michael shot Trevor a look. “Right,” he said, drawing the word out. “Anyway, I thought the same thing. Not just about you but about all of us. The thought occurred to me that she might be...ya know, trying to _fix_ all of us. You, me, Frank...After I quit wondering if she was just a closeted adrenaline junkie, that is.”

“Yeah? What's you're point?”

“That changed is my point, T. After what happened with Bodine. She don't wanna fix us, man. She's not a mother hen. The caring part came after she got to know us. Especially you, man. She feels really deeply for you.”

Michael unraveled some gauze and held it up to Trevor, who leaned forward without protest and allowed Michael to begin wrapping it, over the shoulder, under the armpit, like a holster.

“She told me she loves me,” Trevor said blankly.

Michael smiled faintly. “I believe it.”

“You do?”

“Yeah.” They were quiet for a minute as Michael kept wrapping. “Did you say it back?”

“No. She didn't give me a chance to. I've said it before.” Michael didn't hold back his chuckle this time. “Ergh, what now,” Trevor snipped.

“T, I've known you long enough to know what kinds of things you say to women when you're in bed with 'em. It don't count when you only say it when you're turned on,” Michael laughed. Trevor's shoulders slumped again. He wore a hound dog's scowl on his mug. More silence, now. “Well? Do you love her back or what?” Michael asked.

Trevor pulled a disgusted face. “What kinda question is that?” he spat at Michael.

“What kinda answer is that?” Michael shot back at him.

“The kind of answer that a man who still has a penis gives to a question like that.”

“Bite me.”

“Can we wrap this up?”

“The fuck does it look like I'm doin'?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, there's going to be more action coming up before too long. I have an idea about what I want to do with it. Like I said above, your comments are very much appreciated. Love you, lovely people!


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fluff and phone smut and new characters and old faces.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying super hard to finish this. I think I have the rest of it planned and I've written a decent amount more, so I might update again shortly. Comments always appreciated. Loves.

Rosemary drummed her fingers against the table as she took a long drag of her cigarette. She then rested her hand on Louise's forearm, which was resting on the dining room table at which they sat. She occasionally chanced a look at her daughter who stared at her with pleading eyes, but remained silent.

“Mama, say something,” Louise pleaded.

Rosemary flinched against a plume of smoke that drifted into her face. “I'm not sure what you want me to say, Angelfish,” she said flatly, blowing out a drag.

Louise stirred in her chair and traced the rim of her tea cup with her finger. She shrugged. “It's not about what I _want_ you to say, ma. I need to know what you _think_ ,” she whined.

Rosemary chuckled quietly, tapping some ash into the crystal ashtray in the center of the table. “Baby, I can't tell you anything you don't already know. Men...Men are hapless and emotional. That stereotype about women being hysterical is just a big, fat cultural red herring made to distract us from how quick to anger and paranoia they are: those that carry the y-chromosome.”

Louise just stared back at her mother. She could feel the stickiness of her dried tears on her face and she was blinking against the tightness. As soon as she had quit sobbing, she had told her mother everything. Well, okay, not _everything_. But she had told her mother that she had fallen in love, that she had professed her love, and that the object of her affection was refusing to accept anything that looked like _normal love_ , i.e. a healthy level of concern over that person's tendency to get into potentially deadly situations. She had left out the part about the bullet, hoping instead that Rosemary would envisage rowdy bar fights instead of gunfights that would have put old cowboys to shame.

She hadn't needed to tell her mother who it was that had been performing the unwieldy dance upon her heart, either. Rosemary had given her that look to indicate not only that she knew that Louise had been fooling around in the last few hours but also with whom. But she had kept her judgments to herself in the interest of providing some solid advice and comfort to her daughter. At least Louise was choosing to trust that that was what was going on.

Rosemary gripped her daughters hand and looked her in the eye. “Now, Louise, I don't want to start a fight or anything but it has to be said that you have a tendency to swoop in and try to remedy things. _And_ people...”

Louise glared at her mother. “Mama, please,” she said petulantly, slumping back in her chair.

“And if there's one thing men hate, it's having a _woman_ trying to ply them into being anything less or more than what they are. Especially, if they have a _big presence_.”

Louise sighed. She was quite impressed at how her mother seemed to be tailoring her advice to the man, a man who she didn't approve of. “So you're telling me that I should just look the other way every time he gets into some bullshit that could get him sent up or killed?”

Rosemary grinned and chuckled at her daughter. “I'm tellin' you that a big part of loving someone is trusting them. The way that I trusted your father when he told me that he wanted to move fifteen hundred miles from our stomping grounds to get me away from my hotheaded, bigoted parents and start a new life.”

Louise looked at her mother quizzically. “Mama, you hated him for that.”

Rosemary's face fell into a frown. She furrowed her brow and looked at Louise. “No, darlin', I never hated your father for that. I hated myself for how I handled it. The culture shock and the strugglin'.”

Louise was taken aback. While she had never heard her mother state explicitly that she had hated her father, it had certainly been implied in her actions and the fact that she had seemingly tried to erase his memory after he had gone to the other side. “So, you _didn't_ hate daddy?”

“Hell no,” she spat. “I loved that man with every fiber of my being. Still do, God rest his soul.” She pointed her cigarette at Louise. “But I stopped trusting him after we got up here. When your brother started actin' out and you always seemed to have the croup. It got hard to handle and I blamed him. But we would have been worse off if we'd stayed in Georgia. And so would you in my estimation.”

Louise looked at Rosemary and marveled at what seemed to be a change of heart. She wondered how long she had had to stew in her loneliness and heart ache before she had reached that conclusion. How many times her father had visited her mother in her sleep or if she had lost sleep over it. Her stomach sank with the thought that she might end up like her mother one day. Regretting not holding her man tight in spite of their problems, not soldiering on and holding onto that love for dear life when it was called for.

“I just don't know what to do with him,” Louise said quietly, thinking of Trevor now.

Rosemary sighed. “Well, you have two options. Walk away from that Trenton fella and never look back and never know what could have been or you can keep lovin' him and hope for the best. Both options are terrible, but that's what you have to work with, my girl.”

Louise beamed back at her mother, partly because she found it humorous that she still insisted on calling Trevor by the wrong name and partly out of relief that she had acknowledged him even with the misnomer.

“I don't think I can stop loving him, even if I walk away.”

“Then you better get figurin' out how to live with him, sugar booger.”

Louise felt a profound tiredness come over her just then. Her muscles seemed to lose their firmness one at a time, starting at her toes, working her way up her body until she slumped forward onto the table, still looking at her mother. Rosemary's eyelids seemed to have gotten heavy in that time, too. She sluggishly put her cigarette out in the ashtray and folded her arms, leaning back in her chair.

“You feel that, baby?” Rosemary asked wearily.

“Mmhmm.”

“Storm's a comin'.”

“Yeah,” Louise replied. “A storm called _Johnny.”_

Rosemary shot Louise a glance but stayed quiet. Johnny was meant to be up in North Yankton working in the oil fields, making pretty money and keeping the trouble that he brought with him up there. Giving his mother and sister both a great reprieve in his absence. But over the years, both Louise and Rosemary had developed a sixth sense where Johnny was concerned, a kind of survival mechanism. They could feel his presence before he arrived. The air would buzz around them and suck all the air out of the room just before he showed up.

They heard it at the same time. A truck pulling up in the drive. Two doors slamming. The crunch of gravel under big work boots. And then the door knob rattled a bit before he stepped through the door. Louise pulled herself up and turned to look toward the door.

She saw Johnny first. He swaggered in but didn't shut the door behind him, and that's when his companion appeared. A man whom Louise hadn't laid eyes on since she was in high school. A man whom she had hoped would never appear again. Miles Eno.

Neither Rosemary nor Louise made any show of enthusiasm at the sudden, unannounced appearance of the two rough necks that were seating themselves at the table now. They didn't try to make a run for it, either. They just shared, their eyes flitting in time with one another's between Johnny and Miles.

Johnny quietly strode over to Rosemary and wordlessly planted a kiss on her head before he took a seat at the table across from Louise. He glared hard at her.

“Angelfish,” he said flatly in acknowledgment.

“Johnny,” she responded in kind. He snorted at her.

“Miles here was worried he wasn't gonna get a chance to see you while we was visitin' San Andreas,” he drawled. “I told him you spend all your time out there in Vineweird.”

Johnny was seven years older than Louise, so he spoke with the Georgia accent shared by their parents, an accent that Louise never developed as they had left the South when she was only a baby. Johnny had never shaken it, even in all their time in Fort Carson. And what was a charming cadence on Rosemary and their father was outright menacing in Johnny.

Louise looked over to Miles, who had seated himself beside her without her noticing it. Miles had been Johnny's cellmate when he was put in prison for check fraud. The others in the Verland family had come to know him when he started hovering at their visits to the pen to see Johnny and in that time, he had developed an obsession with Louise, who was only just beginning to bud into something resembling a woman. And when he was released only months after Johnny, he had come to Fort Carson, ostensibly to be in the company of his old friend. But everyone suspected that Louise had something to do with it, too.

When Louise started high school, she would walk outside to see him sitting in his car across from the school, waiting for her. Not to offer her a ride. He knew enough to know that she would never accept. But there he would be, engine idling, cigarette dangling from his mouth, staring hard at her through his eerie sea foam green eyes, which were always ringed with red, a badge of sleeplessness. He was very handsome, with dark hair and olive skin, which only made his spooky eyes that much more striking and terrifying.

Louise had long ago adopted the stance that she wouldn't let him intimidate her. She wasn't going to bow under his creepy gaze. She never had and she wasn't about to now even though the ten or so years that had passed had made him even more frightening.

“Louise,” he said quietly, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it. He raised an eyebrow and looked her up and down. “You've sure grown up.” Louise snorted.

“Yeah, biological organisms tend to do that,” she replied flatly.

That captured his attention and he locked eyes with her as he slipped his lighter back into his pocket. “What's it been, ten or twelve years?” “I guess so.” He sniffed and bore into her, leaning in closer. “Johnny tells me that your husband passed away. I'm very sorry to hear that,” he said without a hint of actual sympathy.

“Thanks,” she grumbled back. She looked at her mother then, who snapped to attention and cleared her throat.

“Louise has another fella in her life, now. His name's Trenton.”

Johnny chortled and spoke up then. “Well, shoot, I guess I got your hopes up without doin' my homework, Miles. 'Course, I can't be blamed for that. Louise don't tell me anything about her life anyway.”

Louise glared up at her brother if only to avoid looking at the creep at her side, though she'd be lying if she said she wasn't relieved that Trevor's misnomer hadn't raised any alarm bells in him. Trevor had, after all, been only a moment from beating him to death in this very room a year ago.

“They have phones in North Yankton, Johnny. You could have called me if you wanted to know what was going on in my life.”

Johnny snarled and stuck a tobacco plug under his bottom lip.

“Louise and I oughta be getting dinner started. I assume you're staying,” Rosemary said, rising to her feet.

“We could always get a motel room if it's a bother, Rosemary,” Miles said, still looking at Louise.

“Don't be stupid, Miles,” Johnny said monotonously. He turned to Rosemary then. “We'll only be a few days, Ma. We're due back up North this time next week.”

Rosemary clasped her hands in front of her. “It's not a problem, John. Louise, will you help me with dinner?” Louise wordlessly rose to her feet and followed her mother into the adjacent kitchen. She felt Miles eyeing her with his signature intensity. Once the two women were behind the dividing wall, obscured from the view of the two men, Rosemary shot Louise a worried look while Louise tried to hide her own worry.

Johnny and Miles were trouble when they were together. Even after they'd been given their freedom, they never stopped running schemes and cons, though now they were smart enough to do so outside of Fort Carson. Whatever they were doing here had nothing to do with family. This wasn't an innocuous visit. They were up to something.

Rosemary turned the kitchen faucet on full blast and then stepped to Louise and leaned in close to her ear. “Louise, you need to leave. I don't like how Miles looks at you.”

Louise looked back at her mother, considering her request for a moment. On one hand, she would have liked nothing more than to flee that place right then and there without looking back. She felt like a trapped animal in the presence of her brother as it was and Miles leering at her only made it worse. But she didn't know what they were up to yet. She didn't know how mild their criminal activity would be and she didn't want to leave Rosemary to get caught up in it. “I'm not leaving you here, Ma,” she whispered back. “If you want, we could go. Tell them that we're going to the store or something.”

“I ain't leaving them here alone, Louise. I don't want to come back to a pile of ashes after they've gone.”

Louise sighed. “Alright, but I'm staying with you.”

 

............................

 

Louise stared at the swirls in the plaster of the darkened ceiling in the guest bedroom. Thirty hours had passed since the arrival of Johnny and Miles and she wondered to herself if she would ever get any sleep. She was afraid that she would wake up in the middle of the night to see Miles standing there even though she had scooted a dresser in front of the door and her mother had allowed her to let her little dog sleep on the floor of the guest room. He wasn't going to defend her but he yapped like a son of a bitch when Miles was near.

She turned over on her side and closed her eyes. She thought of Trevor suddenly. His appearance in her mind was sudden and it made her stomach do a raucous flip. She missed him something fierce but she still didn't have the courage to pick up when he called. She felt like she'd fucked up royally telling him that she loved him. Thinking about it made her face hot.

She'd listened to a couple of the messages all the way through.

_Louise, you're doing that thing again where you turn into a fuckin' hermit crab. It's no good. Please get your ass back here so that we can have a real talk. Or pick up your goddamn phone. Either one of those works._

_Louise, I'm starting to feel like an asshole calling you over and over again..._

Then there were the slightly less coherent but perfectly frequent text messages.

_hey little girl u should pick ur fucking phone. What good is it if u dont pick up._

_Y r u being like this lou_

For fuck sake, was it so much to ask for him to...Well, she couldn't really ask anything of him now seeing as she was choosing to retreat into this desert hermitage instead of facing him. She just wanted him, selfishly wanted him in a way that she would never be able to have him. Not really. He couldn't live in two worlds. He didn't even live in a world that was inhabited by any other souls.

There were exceptions to that, though. When they argued, they were desperately digging at the other, trying to mine some arcane knowledge in the midst of the yelling and name-calling and accusations. When they looked at each other, they were looking into each other. When they fucked, they were on a different planet. The fucking.

Louise wondered if she had adequately conveyed to him how much she loved when they had sex, how sublime it made her feel. Not only because he was very skilled at it, being a pathologically voracious seeker of affection but also because she loved making him feel loved. That turned her on more than any amount of foreplay could ever do. She also loved his hands and his mouth and his clammy skin. She loved holding his hand after. She loved how he ran his hand over her sweaty back with his calloused hand until they both fell asleep. She loved the fucker. She loved him and she couldn't help it.

 

....................

 

Trevor sat on the couch, half-drunk and down to his underwear and work boots. He absently flung various pieces of cutlery into the ceiling while he paged through Louise's sketchbook. Pages upon pages of her wonky fucking imaginings, cruelly surreal on some pages and agonizingly sweet on others. Plenty of line sketches of Trevor, Michael, and Franklin. Mostly Trevor. He seemed to be among her favorite subjects. Lots of colors. Lots of feelings. So many fucking feelings. Contagious feelings.

After about a half an hour of torturing himself and his ceiling, he heard his phone ring. It was three in the morning, so there's no way it could be any good. He fumbled around in his jeans crumpled up on the floor until he found the phone. An image of a sleeping Louise graced the screen.

“Louise?” he asked into the mouth piece.

 _Hey,_ she replied sheepishly after a moment.

“Are you okay?”

_Yeah, I'm fine._

“Are you in another time zone or something?”

 _Did I wake you up?_ She sounded penitent.

Trevor snorted. “What kind of question is that?”

 _Right_ she replied.

“What the fuck are you doin', baby doll? Running off like that? Not fucking cool. And Mikey told me you ran back to your mother's.”

 _I'm-_ she cut herself off with a sigh. _I'm sorry._

“I ain't canvassing for an apology, Lou. I want to know what you're doing back there and why you haven't been answering my calls.”

_I had to...I dunno, I had to get away. You were pissing me off and then I said that thing and I got embarrassed._

Trevor guffawed. _That thing,_ she says. _That thing that he loved hearing. That thing that he wanted for her to tell him again, right this goddamn instant._

“Well, do you really think that peeling out was really the right way to handle it, Louise? I mean for chrissakes-”

_I couldn't stand to be there after what you said to me, Trev. That thing about me taking pity on you? That's bullshit. It's never been about that._

“Well, ya think you could have told me more about that while you were still here instead of skittering off-”

 _When we fuck, it's because I want to be close to you. It's because I want to feel you and because I want for you to touch me and because I want something that's ours, okay? And I love it._ She sounded less shy now, more forceful, more direct and resolute. And that on top of the fact that she was bringing up their sex life was enough to set his nethers on fire.

He realized now that he was holding his unoccupied hand outward, almost defensively, afraid that if he touched himself, he might explode. He decided to test this.

“Tell me what you love, baby,” he purred into the phone.

He could almost hear her blushing on the other end. _I love when you kiss me._

He lowered his hand. “Yeah? What else?”

 _I'm not done talking about the kissing_ she shot at him almost angrily, which turned him on even more. He grunted in acknowledgment as he palmed his hardening cock through his underwear.

_I love when you kiss all around my mouth and then bite my lip before you shove your tongue in there._

“Yeah?” Yeah. “Tell me more about that, baby...” he sighed, gripping a little harder now.

 _I love when you nibble on my neck and kiss me down my collar bone and then put my tits in your mouth. I really love that_.

Trevor felt his skin getting hot and dialed back the rubbing so that he wouldn't send himself over before she got to the really good stuff.

_That first night we almost slept together, you did that. You kissed me all down my stomach and then you got to my inner thigh and you pulled my undies off..._

“I remember,” he said through his labored breathing, biting his lip. He remembered, alright. He remembered that she smelled like vanilla and sweat and arousal. And it was the best smell in the world and how he couldn't wait to feel her in his mouth.

 _If you had kept going you would have tasted what you do to me. I'd never been so horny in my life._ Her voice was soft and a little gravelly and Trevor thought he could hear her breathing hard, too.

“Keep going, baby.”

She must have sensed that he was getting close. Perhaps she was getting close, too. _Before you, I was never able to come just from sex. And then when you and I did it the first time, it felt so good that I thought I was going to lose my mind._

Trevor simply grunted in response, going to town on Little Trevor now.

 _I love your cock, Trev. Your cock is perfect. I love how you fuck me_ , she said in that kind of whimper that he recognized.

She was getting off, too. His mind was a jumble of images, of the two of them together, of Louise, wherever she was, touching herself at that moment.

“Aw, fuck,” Trevor hissed through gritted teeth as he shot his load into his hand, onto his stomach. He pulled out the rest of his orgasm and sighed as he crashed backward against the backrest of the couch. When the blood left his ears he could hear her on the other end, panting and sighing lightly, too.

“Goddamn, baby,” he slurred. She was quiet for a minute, but only for a minute before he heard her speak again, less breathy this time.

 _There's one more thing._ Her voice was a little bit higher pitched the way it got when she was sleepy.

“What's that, baby?” he said through a delirious smile.

_I love when..._

“When what?”

_...When I get to sleep next to you after..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahem, yeah, so...That's where my head was at. Anywhooser, I hope you all aren't bothered by my tendency to bring in O.C.'s. Is that copacetic? The next chapters will bring some more crazy stuff, natch, because this is the GTA V fandom. Yeppers. Let me know what you think :) Honest but kind suggestions are welcome.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alrightski...This is a bit of a long chapter. Still working on the next one. Don't know how long it will take because it's an action chapter and writing action is a bitch if you give half a shit about continuity, so...Yeah. Enjoy :)

Rosemary hadn't been able to take anymore. She was a veritable pressure cooker of stress and worry and after she and Louise had finished cooking breakfast, she left unannounced, wearing a tracksuit and carrying a couple of two pound weights. Louise had watched out the window as she got farther and farther down the road, ferociously pumping her arms with each rigid step. Johnny and Miles were in the dining room now, plating themselves ridiculous portions of the breakfast spread as Louise paced, wondering if she should run out the door after her mother.

She wasn't so scared anymore, more frustrated and tired. Circumventing the rooms that they occupied each waking hour was taxing. They were supposed to leave tomorrow. When they were gone, she could leave too. Solomon had called her all worried, nervous that she had gotten into some more shit. She had assured him gently at first and then more forcefully when he started rattling off ridiculous cinematic scenarios that he thought she might be currently involved in. _He watches too many movies._

“Louise!” Johnny called from the kitchen. Louise blindly heeded his call and walked to the dining room.

“What?” she spat, leaning against the dining room entryway.

He looked up at her, his mouth full of hash browns. “Set down, grab a plate. You're being rude. And your blood sugar's probably low.”

Louise could only scoff at his attempt at conveying concern for her well-being. “My blood sugar's fine.”

“Set!” he barked.

Louise rolled her eyes in response and plopped down at the head of the table, pouring herself a glass of orange juice. She really was doing her best not to set Johnny off, but the only way that she could really do that is if she had a personality transplant. Johnny knew better than to think that she would cower under his personality, but he would keep pushing her. He would push until she gave him an excuse to go off.

“So, uh...Louise, tell us about this Trenton fellow that's courting you,” Miles said. She glanced up to see him wiping his mouth, almost glowering at her. She returned the scowl. After a moment he laughed. “You must not like him all that much if you don't wanna talk about him.”

Louise took the bait. “What do you wanna know?” she asked flatly.

Miles let his mouth curl into a crooked smile. “What's he like?”

Louise sipped her orange juice and saw Johnny staring at her expectantly as he gnawed on a piece of steak. “Well, Miles...He's the living embodiment of a hell beast on earth. An anthropomorphic twelve-headed gatekeeper of the underworld.”

Miles snorted and pointed his fork at her. “Like a demon serpent or something?”

“The very same,” Louise replied.

Miles looked over at Johnny, still smiling. “Guess it beats some hip, art-crowd pansy, huh?” Johnny gave an oafish chuckle in return. Louise fought the temptation to chastise to two of them for being homophobic and disparaging her ex-husband who, for all his flaws, was certainly preferable to the pair of them. It would have fallen on deaf ears anyway. Johnny never listened to anything she said unless it gave him an excuse to swing at her for being disrespectful. And for his part, Miles didn't look upon her like a human being but as a symbol of his failings with women. “Say, Louise...Johnny and I are due to head back the oil fields tomorrow and...We were wondering if you wouldn't mind helping us with a little project. You know, move things along a little bit.”

Louise narrowed her eyes at him. “No.”

He grinned at her. “I haven't even told you what it is yet.”

Louise shifted in her seat. “You don't need to tell me what it is. You guys have been in and out of here the past couple of days, just like when I was a kid. You two would go on your little _errands_ and the next day we would find out about an armed robbery a county over. Whatever it is, I want no part of it.”

Johnny looked at her blankly with his fork stuck in the table cloth before he flung it across the table. Louise watched it careen into the gravy boat, splashing beige, viscous liquid onto the white tablecloth. “Well, that's a shame, Angelfish. 'Cause without a little help, we might have to call up our foreman and tell him that we's havin' car trouble and that we won't be back for...well, an undetermined amount of time,” he shrugged. “I'm sure Ma won't mind putting us up, but...”

“So, you would risk a lucrative, legal job just to spite me?” Louise asked incredulously.

“Goin' back without what we came for would put our jobs at risk. Foreman's the one that sent us.”

“For what?” Louise laughed humorlessly, though she immediately regretted it.

Miles cleared his throat before he interjected. “Well, up there in North Yankton, we don't have coffee houses on every damn corner, Louise. We gotta rely on other things to keep our boys on the ball over those long hours on the field.”

Louise guffawed and shook her head as she got up from the table. “Yeah, I'm gonna pass. I have better shit to do than to help you smuggle ice.” She started past Miles who grabbed her by the arm. “Slide off of me, Miles,” she warned.

“We need you for cover, that's all, Louise. You don't gotta do anything except be there. We're just gonna run over to Blaine County and grab it. We have a contact, a meeting place, everything. Someone like you would be good to have around in case the fuzz is around. You know, someone with a good reputation that can vouch for us if we run into trouble.”

“I said no!” Louise shouted, yanking her arm away from him. She made for the door. Johnny blocked the doorway with his body. He towered over her. “Outta my way, John,” Louise said softly, admittedly intimidated now.

“Louise, I'd think twice before you go getting all high and mighty. 'Cause if you don't do this for us, then we'll have to set up camp here until we can find someone who _will_ help...” He had food in the corner of his mouth. His finger was inches away from her face.

“You mean another patsy, John? Good fucking luck with that...”

“...And that means Ma will have to host us for who knows how long, ya hear?”

That gave Louise pause. She thought about her mother then. About how she had become a prisoner in her own home. About how she kept her head down and spent all day straightening the house and digging in her garden even though it was unnecessary, just so that she could try to ignore the fact that she was hosting two criminals. One of whom she had given birth to.

Rosemary had once held John close at Louise's expense. She had guarded her relationship with her boy closely, turning the other cheek at every transgression, big and small. But once Louise had re-entered her life, she started examining her own life. Louise felt guilty for that. She felt like she had been the impetus for what was now a very painful exercise for her mother. An exercise in which she had been forced to admit that John didn't love her. John didn't love anyone. He only possessed people. And he'd had a stranglehold on Rosemary. He'd poisoned her against Louise, against their father. And now Rosemary was doing penance for it.

“There is something very wrong with you, John,” Louise whispered.

John knelt down to her eye line. “Don't you forget that I wouldn't have gone to prison if it wasn't for you, Angelfish. Don't you forget that Miles wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you.”

Louise craned her neck to look back at Miles, who was leaning against the wall with a smirk on his face. “You do this for us, we'll be gone this time tomorrow.”

She looked back at John. “You leave our mother out of this shit from now on. Because if you don't, I'll make you wish you had, you understand me?”

She saw his eye twitch, a little fire behind it, but she didn't retreat. He straightened up and retracted his finger from her face. “Get your jacket and things. We're goin' now.”

 

......................

 

Louise sat longways on the truck bench while Johnny was in the convenience store paying for gas and Miles stared back at her shamelessly. They'd been on the road for a little under three hours now, though it felt like much longer. She had asked if she could sit in the truck bed, bugs be damned, but they weren't going to let her. She did nothing to hide her repulsion at the company she was being forced to keep. She decided now that the best way to offset the awkwardness would be to listen to some music, to shut off her outside senses. She pulled her phone out of her purse and then went digging for headphones, but she felt the phone being pulled out of her hand. She looked up to see Miles dangling it in front of her.

“Can't let you have this, Louise,” he said in a chastising tone.

“Why the hell not, Miles?” she shot at him angrily.

He licked his lips and started flicking at the phone screen. “'Cause we can't risk you calling the cops.”

“Give me back my pho-”

“Besides,” he continued. “I don't want you getting distracted with any of that hanky panky with your boyfriend when you should be focusing on our task.” Louise felt bile rising in her throat. Chauncey must have been sleeping too hard to alert Louise to his presence. Miles saw her face and gave a cocky smile. “Yeah, I heard what you were getting up to last night, Louise. If you were that lonely, you could have come to see me on the couch.”

Louise narrowed her eyes at him and shook her head. “You were listening outside my door? That is fucking pathetic.”

Miles shot her a hurt look that quickly morphed into an angry one. His startling green eyes turned dark. “Who are you calling pathetic?” he spat.

“You know, Miles, instead of pining after someone that wants absolutely nothing to do with you and never did _even_ when they were a child that shouldn't have known any better, maybe you should try finding a chippy up there in oil country that will actually give you the time of day.” Louise was terribly pleased with herself just then, giving him what for.

“You better watch your ass, woman. I could slap the pretty off your face if I wanted.”

“And I could get out of this car, go into that gas station and tell the clerk that I was taken against my will by crank smugglers.”

“That wouldn't be good for you _or_ that clerk, Louise,” he said, slicing her with his gaze.

Johnny opened the door just then, sliding into the driver's seat. “It won't be twenty more minutes before we get there,” he said calmly, starting the truck and putting them back on the road. Miles held his sideways position, shooting Louise a warning stare while Louise bit the tip of her thumb, anxious for this little adventure to be over.

 

..........................

 

“The rules of the game are mighty simple, Mikey,” Trevor said. “We flip a coin. If it lands on heads, I get to punch you as hard as I can in the face and if it lands on tails, you get to cut off the tip of my finger.”

Michael leaned against the kitchen counter sipping a beer and shaking his head incredulously at his mostly-healed friend. “Where the fuck did you learn a game like that?”

“We used to play it in prison all the time during lock down to pass the boring hours. And to settle disagreements.” Michael sipped from his beer bottle.

“Well, you still have the tips of your fingers, so...”

“So I'm good at it and there are a couple of my former cellies out there with crooked noses and a few less of their own teeth.”

Michael laughed despite himself. “You are a sick son of a bitch, man.”

“I wouldn't have me any other way,” Trevor replied with a shit-eating grin. He was in a much better mood today than he had been in days past. His wound was getting better and didn't seem to be infected, so Michael was about ready to make his way back to L.S. Michael's phone rang just then. He pulled it out of the pocket of his suit jacket and looked at the screen. He didn't recognize the number. “Who is it?” Trevor asked absently.

“I dunno,” Michael replied. He accepted the call.

“Hello?”

 _Michael?_ came a female voice.

“Speaking,” he said tentatively.

_It's Rosemary Verland, Louise's mother._

“Rosemary,” Michael said, somewhat surprised. Trevor shot him a strange look.

_Michael I'm terribly sorry to bother you. I got your number from your wife._

“It's fine. Everything okay?” Michael looked at Trevor again who hissed at him to put it on speaker. Michael complied.

 _Well, I'm not entirely sure. I-_ Rosemary cut herself off and Michael could definitely hear concern in her voice now.

“Okay...What's going on? Is Louise okay?” Trevor was staring hard between the phone and Michael now.

_Well...Louise has been staying with me the last couple days and while she was here, her brother showed up suddenly._

“Her brother?” Michael asked.

Trevor starting pacing, keeping his eyes on the phone.

 _He wasn't alone, either. He brought his old prison buddy with him. A man by the name of Miles Eno. And Miles has a long-standing and unhealthy obsession with my girl. He has since she was a child. And today, I left Louise alone-_ Michael could hear Rosemary's voice break.

“Okay, okay...Just calm down and tell me what's up.”

_I came home and they're all gone. Louise's car is still here so I know that she went with them and whatever they've gotten her into is no good. I don't know what they're doing but I know it ain't legal and I'm sure it isn't safe, especially for Louise._

Michael sighed. Trevor was doing his best to bite his tongue. He knew that Trevor knew that Rosemary was no fan of his, so Michael tried to fill in the gaps to keep his friend from exploding into panic.

“Maybe they all went out for drinks or somethin'?”

_Michael, listen to me closely. Johnny and Louise cannot stand each other and I've been watching Louise walk on egg shells for the past day and a half while Miles stares at her the way a hawk stares at a rabbit. I don't know what they're doing but I know she's with them and she ain't safe as long as that's the case._

“Rosemary-”

 _Now, I know what you do for a living, Michael. I guessed it as soon as I saw your house and you're a little too young to be a retired investment banker. I put two and two together, honey. I know that you and that Trenton fellow are less than legitimate business men._ Michael paused and looked at Trevor who rolled his eyes and made a crude gesture with his hand. _But I didn't call to chide you for your life choices, young man. I called you because I think that you can put those skills to use to find Louise before her brother gets her hurt or...before Miles puts his hands on her._

Trevor wasn't being petulant anymore. He looked at Michael, now, seemingly remembering the not-so-subtle territoriality he had been exhibiting when Rosemary had brought up this _Miles_ guy.

“I'll see what I can do and I'll be in touch,” Michael said, hanging up the phone.

Trevor didn't hesitate before he started in. “What the fuck would Lou be doing with that ass-head fuckin' brother of hers?” he asked rhetorically.

“T, I'm sure she's okay, but-”

“She wouldn't go anywhere with him if her life depended on it,” Trevor interrupted. “And who is this new ass-head that I've never heard of?” he spat, pacing about.

“Well, I dunno, but until we know what were up against, I don't think it would be a bad idea to give Franklin a call,” Michael said, shifting into problem-solving mode now.

“Yeah, yeah, call him,” Trevor muttered, clearly lost in his own thoughts.

 

........................

 

Franklin rolled off of his couch and listlessly shuffled toward the kitchen counter where his phone sat ringing off the proverbial hook. He'd fallen asleep after burning a sizable bowl earlier in the day. He looked at the screen to see that it was Michael calling.

“Hey, Michael,” he yawned into the phone.

_Hey, Frank. We got a little problem we could maybe use your muscle on._

Franklin rubbed his forehead sleepily. There was always a problem. “What is it?”

He heard Michael sigh. _I got a call from Louise's mother. Apparently, her brother rolled into town a couple of days ago with some other fuck and today, when she got home, they were all missing. Louise's car is still at her mother's, so she's fairly certain that they lured Louise out with them._

Franklin paused, a little confused. “It's her brother, man, she sure they ain't just gone on some brother-sister outing or somethin'?”

_No, that's not really plausible. Louise and her brother don't exactly get along._

_Give me the phone!_ came Trevor's voice. _Franklin!_

“Trevor?”

_We need you down here STAT._

Franklin sighed. “Man, she's with a family member, what's the worst that could happen?”

 _Her water-brained fuck of a brother has no compunction about slapping her around and he sure as shit doesn't care if anything happens to her._ That's when it came back to Franklin, who until a moment ago, had been afflicted with a sleep-addled brain and something of a weed hangover. All the things Louise had told him about her brother. About how he was cruel and crazy and how he may or may not be holding onto a grudge at Louise for getting him put in prison.

“Fuck, man. A'ight, I'm on my way.”

_Wait! We need you to get a hold of Lester. See if he can find her._

“You got it, son. I call you when we get it figured out.” Franklin hung up the phone and fought the urge to toss it across the room out of frustration at the news that Louise was causing them problems again. Or that her shitty luck was causing them problems. Whatever it was, she was a common factor and once again, he had to wonder if she would be found untouched again or if today was the day that fortune decided to take a ninety degree turn on her. He dialed Lester's number.

 

.......................

 

“This is the place,” Miles said, glancing at a piece of paper as they pulled up to a farm house. Or the mostly-charred remains of a farmhouse in Grapeseed. Louise tilted her body to get a better look at the place. It looked as though there was some kind of reconstruction project in progress. The vicinity around the perimeter of the house was littered with all manner of plows and other types of heavy machinery. The area to the left of it was filled with burned scrap and building debris. The house itself had a skeletal attempt at rebuilt walls around the foundation, with some sheet rock here and there.

Louise was confounded at the sight. She was no expert on carpentry but she was certain that one should finish building the frame of a house before they tried to put up sheetrock. Moreover, though, she was nervous. If there was an award for sketchy drug dens, this place would take the blue ribbon in a landslide. The two men with her exited the truck, but Louise stayed put. That is until Miles caught sight of her, all rigid and nervous. He gestured for her to join them outside. “Let's get goin', Louise.”

Louise bit her lip and stole another glance at the house-like structure.“Don't you need a lookout or something?”

Miles met the question with a menacing laugh. “This ain't that kind of deal. It'll be simple. Come on inside.”

“But-”

“He ain't _askin'_ , Angelfish,” Johnny barked at her. She shot him her best attempt at a threatening stare, but he met it in kind and she knew that his was far worse. She pulled the door open and leaped out. They walked toward the house. She strode past Miles, having a hard time keeping a slow gait with how jittery she was until she felt his hand on the small of her back. She wriggled away from him and slowed her pace.

When they walked up the rickety steps, they were greeted by a portly blonde-headed man with a mullet and a rebel flag on his t-shirt. “Gentleman!” he said, sounding inappropriately chipper given the circumstances. He also spoke with the Southern twang that an inordinate amount of people in these parts seemed to have. “And...lady?” he said tenuously giving Louise a once-over before he seemed to collect himself, shaking his head. “I'm Merle O'Neil. I spoke with your employer about our little transaction. Johnny and Miles, I take it?” The two men wordlessly nodded in the affirmative having adopted a cool indifference that Louise suspected was part and parcel for this kind of business. He strode the two steps toward Louise now. “And who may I ask is this charmin' creature?”

Louise's mind went into rapid fire mode. Not only did she now have two lecherous fools to hold with until she was relieved of her conscription, but this new fool wanted for her to identify herself. “Brenda,” she said without thinking.

He held his pudgy arm out to her. She shook his hand reluctantly. “Brenda...Lovely name for a lovely gal,” he cooed at her, making her skin crawl. Louise didn't need to look at her two companions to know that they were staring at her queerly, but she counted herself lucky that they didn't blow her cover. “Well, folks, right this way,” he said gesturing into the house.

He led them in through the door, though it seemed a little ridiculous given that they could have stepped through any number of crevices to get into the house. However, when she got inside, she saw what the painter's plastic on the outside had been obscuring a veritable maze of _more_ plastic and scaffolding. It filled her with an overwhelming sense of foreboding. Her eyes jerked around, looking for a way to orient herself to this new place that made absolutely no goddamn sense whatsoever. It stunk in here, like ammonia and sulphur on top of the smell of chemically-treated plywood. Even though it wasn't walled off, it somehow it hadn't aerated, the bevy of odors lingering inside the plastic tunnels.

Louise hung back as they navigated the place, finally arriving at a set of stairs that, while it was obviously new construction, was surrounded by scorched walls. _I guess he'll get to that later,_ Louise thought, fighting the voice in her head that was telling her to get right the fuck out of there. Merle headed down the steps first, followed by Johnny. Louise wanted to go last so that she could clandestinely leave, but Miles pushed her in front of him. He must have known what her designs were. And then there they were, in the very place that was emitting the putrid smells. Louise gagged and covered her face as she glanced around the meth lab.

“Folks, while this is a one-man operation at the moment, I fully intend to import some more of my meth-cookin' brethren from down south and turn this into a full-scale, meth-buffet, tailored to the needs of business people like yourself. As you can see,” he said, gesturing about the room, “I have all the best equipment and I assure you that I am working day and night to make as much as you can buy.” He sounded so proud of himself. _Say **meth** one more time, asshole,_ Louise thought to herself. Miles and Johnny were walking around the little room while Louise remained on the landing, still covering her face with her sleeve. “So, uh, whyd'ya have to come all the way down here to score some ice, fellas? I thought North Yankton was boomin' right now.”

“Oil boom brought more fuzz with it. It's dry in lots of counties and the stuff you can get doesn't hack it,” Johnny said flatly, examining the tables full of glassware and fuel.

“Well, lucky me!” chirped Merle. He looked at Louise now. “So, uh, Brenda...How'd you like a taste of what I got cookin', little lady?”

Louise moved her arm from her face long enough to speak to him. “I'll pass.”

“Aw, come on. How you gonna turn down a free sample?” he asked. He was leaning against the bannister, beaming up at her with a creepily boyish smile.

“What makes you think I use?” she said, trying to hide her disgust.

Merle dropped the smile from his face and pushed off the banister. “You, er, always this standoffish, Brenda?”

“Are you always this cordial with people who are buying methamphetamine from you?”

That seemed to sink his enthusiasm a bit. He had a nervous twitch, Louise now saw. “Well, little lady, if you must know, I'm tryin' to build a customer base. See, this used to be a fully-operational lab before...My dearly departed cousins, who ran it were all gunned down and then...burned by a savage son of a bitch.”

Louise felt a slight pang of regret. While she didn't know exactly where it was that her sympathies should have fallen, if what he was saying was true, and from the looks of this place, it could very well be, she should show some decorum. She scratched the back of her neck. “I'm sorry,” she said sheepishly.

That brought the smile back to his face. “That's alright, Brenda,” Merle said. He cleared his throat. “Anyway, long story short, I came from down south to help bring the family business back to fruition, and here I am.” He slapped the side of a fuel tank to make his point. Louise flinched at the gesture but quickly relaxed, trying to recover her cool.

She heard a snorting noise and looked up from Merle to see Miles doing a bump off the back of his hand. His face contorted with something that looked like pain before his eyes got wild. “John?” he said beckoning to Johnny. John quickly made his way over to Miles and did his own, though he didn't seem nearly as affected by it as Miles did. Louise felt her face curl in disgust at the sight.

Johnny turned to Merle. “We'll take it. The amount previously agreed upon.”

In response to the news, Merle clapped joyously and rubbed his hands together. “Woodoggy! You got yourself a deal, sir,” offering his hand for Johnny to shake. Johnny only looked at it blankly before Merle retracted it. He cleared his throat. “Now about payment...”

“One fifty a gram,” Johnny said.

Merle shifted on his feet. “Well, wait now, your foreman and I agreed on three hundred a gram. That's what we agreed on.”

 _Oh, great,_ thought Louise. They were going to get into a price war over this highly illegal shit, which would protract the process, which meant that she wasn't going to get out of here in a timely manner. Well, actually “timely” was a relative term now seeing as how she had already spent more time than she wanted to in a meth lab.

“One seventy five, then,” Johnny drawled.

“Uh uh,” Merle said, shaking his head. “No, sir. We agreed on three hundred a gram. The product speaks for itself,” he said gesturing to the baggie that Miles held in his hand.

Miles and Johnny were looking at each other, now. Each wearing identical shades of menace and deviousness and it made Louise feel queasy. Unless it was the fumes, which were probably not helping. “How about two fifty? Will you take two fifty, Merle?” Louise asked suddenly, drawing stares from all three men. She felt very much out of her element all of a sudden. Negotiating a drug deal. Yes, she had been responsible for multiple deaths by this point, so aiding and abetting drug dealers was kind of splitting hairs, but still. At least she was doing it for the right reasons. Or not. She just wanted them to quit staring at her. And also to get the hell out of there.

Merle looked down at his feet and then back up at Louise. “Little lady, you drive a hard bargain, but I suppose I can live with that.”

Louise furrowed her brow. She hadn't really been driving a hard bargain at all, at least not in her estimation. She was trying to be expedient, is all. The fact that she had tits must have made her a supreme negotiator in Merle's eyes. “Guys?” she asked, addressing Miles and Johnny. They didn't change their expressions.

“Fine,” Miles returned. “But, uh...” he began, glancing at his partner, “we weren't planning on having to pay so much, so we need to go and make a stop for some more _dinero.”_

“I'll go get it,” Louise offered.

“Oh, no, no, no _Brenda,”_ Miles jeered. “You aren't slipping away that easily.”

“What the hell are you on about, Miles?” she shot back.

“You need to stay here with Merle as collateral so that he knows we're not dogging out on him.” Louise's stomach turned.

“If you let me go now, I can get to the bank before it closes.”

Miles sneered at her. “No, Bren, you can't just go to the bank and get it because you'll raise flags. We need to acquire the funds through some other means and you need to stay here and make sure that our investment is secure.” Merle seemed to like the idea. He gave Louise a shy smile that quickly disappeared when Miles spoke next. “You touch her, I'll slit you up the middle, Merle. Hands off, ya hear?” He was being totally serious, marking his territory which made Louise angry.

Merle nodded quickly. “It's no matter, Brenda. You can stay here. I'll give you the grand tour,” he said.

Johnny grabbed Miles by the arm and pulled him toward the landing. They pushed past Louise, who was left standing there with Merle. She gulped and listened to the foot steps above them as Johnny and Miles headed out the door. She stood for a second, digging her toe into the floor while Merle trained his boyish grin at her. After a moment, she spoke. She wanted out of the basement. “Well, I've already seen this room.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ruh-roh. What's gonna happen? Seriously, I don't know. Your guess is as good as mine at this point. Thank you for reading. I love reading your comments and stuff, so feel free to do that to keep me supplied with a steady-stream of inspiration juice. Many hugs to you all <3


	14. Chapter 14

Trevor didn't know whether to be pleased or enraged at the news that Louise was, according to Lester, in the Grapeseed area if her phone signal was any indication. Yes, it meant that she was close, but someone like her had no business being in Blaine County's shit vacuum without a benevolent escort like himself. Or at all for that matter.

He had wanted to drive, but getting Michael to give him that privilege had been like pulling teeth and he finally decided that he wasn't going to waste time convincing his friend to let him take the wheel. They were making okay time down the highway, but it wasn't nearly fast enough.

“Step on it, Porkchop,” he snarled.

“Piss off. We'll be there soon.”

“Since when are you afraid of a little high speed chase, Mikey?”

Michael gripped the steering wheel harder at that. “We don't know what the fuck we're chasin' yet, ya prick,” Michael huffed.

Trevor turned in his seat to face his friend. “Oh, that's where you're wrong, friend. Brother John is half-cocked and a quart low and he thinks that his baby sister is his personal punching bag, so I'd say we are acutely fucking aware of what we're chasing,” he yelled.

Michael held his free hand up defensively. “I read ya, man. I'm sorry.”

Trevor huffed out a sigh and tapped his foot impatiently, trying to push down his more abysmal thoughts about what they might find when they got wherever the hell they were going. Michael decided to broach the uncomfortable silence.

“Ya know, Trev...I...It's _interesting_ to see you like this. Acting in a defenseless woman's interest. I never thought I'd see that side of you.”

Trevor shot him a cross-ways look. He didn't know if he should be offended or not. “What do you mean?” he asked suspiciously.

Michael rolled his eyes at him, plainly annoyed that he was being called to task for his vague statement. “I mean...You know, this past year I've seen you go out on a limb for reasons other than blind rage and blood lust. It's nice to see that side of you.”

“When have I ever failed _you_ or any of my friends in that arena, _bud?”_ Trevor growled.

“Well, you fed me to those Chinese fucks.”

“Yeah, _after_ you betrayed me. But I let you live, didn't I?”

Michael chuckled. “That's fair.”

“Anyway, the past year has been different. _This_ is different. I'm doing _this_ for love.”

Michael turned his head slowly to look at Trevor, his eyes betraying disbelief. He returned his gaze to the road after a moment. “Did I just hear you admit that you love her?”

Trevor recoiled, not at the accusation but at Michael's smug delivery of it. “I meant to say regular sex,” he replied in jest.

 _“Ugh,”_ Michael said with his mouth twisted in disgust.

“What?” Trevor said defensively.

“I think I've made it abundantly clear that I hate thinking about the two of you in the sack.”

“But you _have_ thought about it,” Trevor accused.

“Yeah, because you force me to every time you bring it up.”

“And now you're squeamish,” came Trevor's exasperated retort. “Remember when we were kids? How times did you wake up to rocking bed springs in those dingy little motels-”

“We ain't kids anymore and Louise isn't some nameless middle aged barfly trying to recapture her youth with a mulleted hood with a belly full of cheap liquor.”

“I miss those days,” Trevor muttered wistfully.

Michael ignored him. “She's a fully-formed human being as far as I'm concerned, and I'll have you know that I've grown to care about her a great deal in the time that I've known her.”

“Ah, yes, the weird _paternal_ bullshit...”

“And for that reason, I don't like thinking about my psychotic best friend on top of her!”

“She actually likes to be on top most of the time.”

“Shut the fuck up! Let's go get her out of her pyromaniac shithead brother's clutches!” Michael shouted as he stepped on the accelerator.

Trevor found himself mildly disappointed that he wouldn't get the chance to rattle off an embellished list of his and Louise's sexual activities but glad that his tactic to get Michael's head in the game had worked. Trevor pulled his ringing phone out of his pocket to see that Franklin was calling.

“Y'ello.”

_Trevor, I just got a call from Lester. Louise's phone just pinged off of a tower near Sandy Shores._

“Fuck! We're nearly out in Grapeseed. Turn around, Mikey.”

_No, keep going. Get out to that farmhouse and sit tight. I'm almost there anyway and I might be able to intercept. There's no use in you comin' back this way 'cause we don't know where they headed. I'ma tail 'em when they get where they're goin' and I'll call you back._

Trevor mulled this over for a second. He was impressed that Franklin was taking the strategic lead but he was still green, so he didn't know if he should heed his advice.

“Alright, we'll head out there...Wait? How do you know it's a farmhouse?”

_Lester was able to pinpoint the last static location and he pulled up some new building permits for a farmhouse that burned down a year and a half ago. It was ruled an arson but now someone's renovating it._

Trevor felt his throat get tight. “A torched farmhouse?” he asked incredulously. “What was the name of the previous owners?”

_How the fuck should I know man? Doesn't exactly seem relevant..._

Trevor sighed before he punched the dashboard abruptly, drawing a startled and curious stare from Michael. “What the fuck, man?” Michael chided.

“Franklin, listen to me very closely. When you find them do not let them out of your sight. Me and Mikey will go set up a post at the farmhouse and you keep a very close eye on the target, ya hear? And call me if anything changes.” Trevor could hear the rage-tinged worry in his own voice.

 _You got it, man,_ Franklin said, ending the call.

They pulled off onto the dirt road that led out to the old O'Neil place. Trevor had a bad feeling and he knew that he was right in having it, but he didn't know just where the nagging feeling was coming from. He was fairly certain that the laws of the universe still dictated that a brood of inbred bumpkins couldn't reanimate and seek revenge.

“What was that all about?”

“You got some fire power in the trunk of this thing, Mikey?”

Michael glanced at him tenuously. “Sure.”

“Good. Pull up into that brush up there. Don't go straight to the house,” Trevor said when they reached a fork in the road.

Michael eased the car up the small hill and into the little stand of trees. “What's going on?” Michael asked as they both exited the car.

Trevor stood up and looked at Michael over the top of the car. “You remember that little helicopter ride we took out to the woods to wipe out those contract-poaching hillbillies?” He could see Michael searching his mind.

“Yeah, why?”

“Well, if you remember I told you that I blew their cookhouse away after I killed a bunch of 'em...”

“Yeah...” Michael said not bothering to hide his growing patience.

“Well, this farm here would be where that went down. Grab a piece.”

 

..................................

 

Franklin was wishing suddenly that he had procured a different whip for this little misadventure. His slick sports car stuck out like a sore thumb in this little podunk full of dune buggies and rusted out old pick ups. He watched as his presumed targets exited their truck outside of Ammunation. Two men, one quite a bit taller than the other, both dressed in dirty denim with trucker caps. No sign of Louise, but everything he'd heard from Lester indicated that these were the guys. His gaze lingered on the two for a moment before they went inside. He dialed Trevor.

_Frank! We've been here for fifteen minutes. Any sign of Louise?_

“Naw, man but there's these two skinny dudes. Neither one looks like he could be her brother.”

_What do they look like?_

“Uh, there's an average-sized dude, kinda swarthy and then there's this lanky motherfucker with long blonde hair and...”

_And fish lips and a snaggle tooth and a wind-burned face? Looks like he's been dropped on his head a few times?_

“I didn't get _that_ good a look at him, homie.”

_Where are they?_

“They just went into the gun store.”

 _Stay on 'em,_ Trevor warned before the call ended.

Franklin tapped his foot impatiently while he watched the store. He was glad suddenly that they had Lester handy to take the guesswork out of this type of thing. But he was nervous, too. Nervous because Louise wasn't with them. He had half a mind to walk over to the truck and have a peek in the back to see if she was in there crouched down but he knew that would probably only serve to get his ass shot, seeing as how he was probably the only black man in a fifty mile radius.

Maybe he should go into the store? See if they were stupid enough to be talking candidly about what they were up to? He was starting to itch at the thought when the two emerged from the store, carrying some discreet cases, though he knew what was inside. It looked like pretty heavy fire power from where he was sitting. He texted Lester asking for him to tell him if the signal was moving and in which direction, just to be on the safe side. Just in case some fluke had brought him to the wrong guys. He hit send and realized suddenly that the point was moot because when the lanky dude looked up, he could make out the wind-burns and the full lips and what appeared to be a snaggle tooth. As soon as they were in the truck, the tail lights came on and they pulled out. Franklin followed and once they were a half a mile down the road, Lester's response came in. It was affirmative. Whoever they were, they had Louise's phone and with any luck, they would be headed back her way. With even more luck, she would be well. He hung back and pulled out his phone to call his friends again.

 

..............................

 

Michael and Trevor were slowly making their way around the perimeter of the corrugated steel barn that obstructed their view of the house. “That was Frank,” said Trevor in an uncharacteristically hushed tone. “He's tailing Johnny and whats-his-fuck. They're about fifteen minutes out. And it sounds like they're armed now.”

At the moment, they didn't have a plan. Things were more than a little bit opaque what with them not having laid eyes on Louise yet and not knowing what the fuck was going on even in the most broad sense. For now, they were keeping an eye out from the inside of this barn, weaving in and out of empty drums and dilapidated farm equipment. The sun was starting to set over the mountains, which was a relief as whatever they were doing was most certainly more prudently executed under the cover of night. Or near-night.

“Trev, have you even thought about what we're going to do? I mean, I dunno if it's advisable for you to kill your lover's brother no matter how much of a prick he is. He's still her kin, ya know.”

Trevor stopped and turned to Michael. He was wearing what could only be described as a vaguely crazed expression. “No, I haven't thought about what we're going to do, Michael. We don't know what the fuck is going on. All we know is that Louise was probably here at some point unless her brother suddenly developed a conscience and let her out somewhere between Fort Carson and here.”

Michael considered this for a moment, hoisting his rifle up higher on his shoulder. “That doesn't answer the latter half of my question.”

Trevor huffed. “If we find Louise unharmed and he doesn't give me a reason to clip him, then there is a _chance_ that I will leave him alive.” Michael rolled his eyes. The two guys who took Louise from her home were, according to Franklin, currently armed and headed back this way. On what planet did that denote that there wouldn't be a reason to clip him? Michael was about to walk through that gaping hole in Trevor's logic when they simultaneously heard a voice. Male. With a Southern accent.

Trevor turned and starting walking backwards, gesturing for Michael to go to the other side of the barn. Michael hopped and shimmied across the barn, trying to avoid tripping over the worthless items that littered it's floor. Finally, he reached the wide doorway. He clutched his rifle to his body and peered around the corner. The voice got louder, though it was curtailed by a slight cross-breeze that was picking up suddenly. He ran to an oil drum outside, at the corner of the barn and crouched down.

The man appeared first. A blonde hillbilly type with a rebel flag on his t-shirt. Chubby dude that talked a lot with his hands. Shortly thereafter, someone else appeared in his line of sight. He almost couldn't tell it was her. The setting sun was in her black hair, making it look deceptively lighter. But he knew her walk and he'd seen that dress before. Louise was shuffling behind the guy slowly, keeping a safe distance between them. Her hands were jammed in the pockets of her denim jacket. When the blonde guy turned around to acknowledge her, she gave a polite smile that quickly fell into a bored scowl when he turned his back again to point at something off to the side of the house.

So, she didn't seem scared. That was encouraging. If anything, she looked bored out of her skull. It almost made her look like a sullen teenager, which was preferable to a petrified kidnapping victim. Of course, he had seen her as a kidnapping victim. His kidnapping victim. And as soon as the terror had worn off, he'd been left gazing at a face that looked very much like the one that she was wearing now. It was for that reason that he wasn't entirely hopeful that she wasn't being held against her will. What frightened him even more was that he realized now how seasoned she had become at shit like this. She'd been swiped and ping-ponged around different chains of custody. She was a professional victim now. And he feared that that could be her undoing today. That perhaps her survival instincts had been worn down from overuse and that she might make a false move.

He shook the thought off as he watched her follow the blonde redneck to the side of the house. He got up and crept backwards toward the barn's entrance to get back to Trevor, but was surprised to see that Trevor was already standing there. “I'm going around to the back of the house,” Trevor said.

Michael turned back toward the house to see Louise disappearing behind it. “Don't go crazy, T.”

 

..............................

 

“Our great-granddad bought the property from old homesteaders after the dust bowl and since then just about every O'Neil child in the last few generations has been brought up in this house,” Merle explained at Louise.

Louise who could give a flying fuck about Merle's shallow gene pool or their history. Louise who really just kinda wanted to get out of here. But she smiled and nodded as he explained to her what kinds of gables he wanted to put on the house once the frame and the roof were in place. And she fought the urge to ask what use gables or crown moulding were in a house that was already contaminated with caustic meth-making chemicals.

The two of them slowly made their way around the house while Merle explained his plans for every square inch of the house and Louise kept an ear out for Johnny's truck. Luckily, Merle didn't seem to be too anxious for Johnny and Miles to come back, otherwise Louise might have to make a hasty exit and she didn't know the area well enough to make a clean getaway should the blonde hick's gentle disposition change. Right now, he seemed content to be in her company and he didn't appear to be a threat.

“Watch out for that backhoe blade, it's rusty. You don't wanna get tetanus, do ya?” Merle chuckled, steering Louise away from the big yellow machine. She didn't bother reminding him that they made vaccines for that now. “Say, Brenda, do Johnny and Miles always take this long to complete a transaction?”

“I'm not really the person to ask, Merle,” Louise said flatly.

“How do ya figure?”

“I'm not usually a party to this kind of thing.”

Merle stopped walking and turned to her. He gave her a befuddled look before he shifted his gaze out the side of his eye. “I didn't think so...A genteel gal like you hangin' out around the pair of them. So what are you doin' here, then?”

Louise shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. I guess Miles wanted to spend some time with me before he heads back up north.”

Merle gulped. “Miles is your fella I take it?”

Louise laughed dryly. “He seems to think so. But then him and Johnny like to lay claim to things _and people_ that don't belong to them, so take from that what you will.”

Louise wasn't worried that Merle was going to try anything seeing as how he had almost jumped out of his skin when Miles threatened him. The dude did seem a little brazen in his questions about her love life, though.

“Have you got a gentleman in your life, Brenda? You must. Raven-haired beauty like yourself,” he said.

“Yeah. He lives around here, actually,” Louise replied, ignoring the flirtation.

“Anyone I would know?”

“I thought you just got here.”

Merle laughed. “Well, little miss, I spent almost every summer here and people in these parts tend to linger.”

“His name is Trenton,” Louise said. Just then she looked up to see a plume of dust a short ways down the road from the farm. “That'll be Johnny and Miles,” she said pointing down the road.

Merle followed her finger to the red pickup headed their way. He rubbed his hands together. “Well, here goes. My first transaction since I landed.”

“Congratulations,” Louise said dryly.

Merle turned to her. “Say, Brenda, I didn't thank you for settlin' that little pricing dispute. It sure was a help. I can use all the help I can get while I get my foot in the door.”

Louise snorted. “Don't mention it,” she muttered sardonically.

A short moment later, Johnny and Miles pulled up.

“Well, I'm gonna head downstairs and grab the package so y'all can be on your way,” Merle said, walking toward the house.

Louise said nothing of his departure. She looked past the farmlands to the mountains, which were letting go of the last sun-dappled patches as the sun set over San Andreas. She let her shoulders relax a little bit, realizing now that she had been holding a rigid posture for the past several hours. She had been clenching her teeth, too. She rubbed her jaw, trying to work the tension out.

Suddenly, she realized that John and Miles were still in the car. She looked up and tried to peer into the windshield. She saw some movement, but the growing darkness made it difficult for her to see what they were doing. It was then that Merle emerged from the house carrying a square parcel under his arm. As he made his way back toward Louise, the pickup doors opened in unison and Johnny and Miles emerged. She didn't see the guns right away, or rather, she didn't immediately comprehend that Johnny and Miles were each carrying a semi-automatic rifle.

Johnny cradled his in his arms while Miles had his slung over his shoulder. She hadn't been expecting it, but as they advanced upon her and Merle, she became acutely aware of what was going down. They hadn't gone out to get more _funds_.

“Fellas!” cried Merle. “Wh-what are you doin'? Weapons ain't necessary!”

Louise glimpsed the menace in each of the encroaching predators' eyes. She didn't know what they were doing at this moment. She didn't know what their game was. Were they going to rob him? Take the guess work out of deciding whether he would quietly hand over the stuff and let them go on their merry way by shooting him?

“What the hell, Johnny!” Louise cried, her voice breaking. “What have you done! Put the guns down,” she pleaded, holding her hands out to them.

“Outta the way, Angelfish,” Johnny barked, raising his weapon to his shoulder.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a long one, so brace yourselves. I would have broken it up but I couldn't really find a logical way to do so :P My sincerest apologies for that. I hope you enjoy it anyway :)

 

 

The sun was really beginning to set as Trevor watched the scene unfold from the wheel-well of a tractor near the house, about twelve yards from where Louise and the blonde mullet stood. He was exercising an uncharacteristic level of restraint, but he felt his adrenaline and rage climbing to meet the quota set by Louise's presence here. Before, he had been in pure problem-solving mode or, his terrifically twisted version of it. And now he was irrationally mad at her again for...being here. In a place with guns a tiny criminal element that did not consist of himself, Franklin, and Michael. Silly woman.

That was until he saw Johnny pull his gun, and train it at the redneck, Louise stepping in front of the target, trying to curtail her brother's unquenchable impulse and stupidity. Johnny admonished her to get out of the way, which would have brought Trevor some measure of comfort if he wasn't already pissed off beyond belief. He saw Michael materialize from the broad side of the barn at the same time that he began making his way toward the four people by the house, slowly, steadily.

“This is stupid, Johnny,” Louise said brusquely, holding her position. “Merle will give you whatever you want, right Merle?” she asked over her shoulder.

“That's right, Brenda!” this _Merle_ character responded in a high-pitched chirp, laden with fear. A fear that Trevor found pathetic but was nonetheless grateful for. Maybe they could settle this without bullets flying.

“I ain't gonna ask you again, Louise,” Johnny growled. His voice betrayed no distress whatsoever. In Trevor's estimation, this was likely due to the fact that Johnny was obviously _touched_ but not in a way that elicited sympathy or patience. Not from Trevor Philips, anyway.

 _“Louise?”_ Merle asked, obviously confused. “Why'd he call you Louise, Brenda?”

“'Cause that's her name you fuckin' dink!” the shorter guy called from behind Johnny. _That would be Miles,_ Trevor supposed.

“I'm confused,” Merle finally admitted.

“All of you are fuckin' confused!” crowed Trevor. Immediately, four astonished faces whipped over to meet him as he advanced on them, slowly still. Johnny and Miles had their guns on him, now.

“Oh, what the fuck is this guy doin' here?” Johnny asked, directing his inquiry at Louise, keeping his gaze fixed on Trevor.

“Trev-” Louise began incredulously before she cut herself off, shifting her gaze sideways to Johnny and Miles.

Merle huffed from behind her. _“Trev?”_ he said sounding intrigued, though still frightened. “As in _Trevor?”_ Trevor stole a glance at Louise, whose eyes were about as wide as he had ever seen. He wondered then if his past indiscretion had been revealed to her in her time here with his name attached. If she was scared of him just then having heard the story of how the O'Neil farmhouse came to be burned down. Or if she was scared that Johnny had caught the sight of the guy that had punched him hard enough to break two legs off of an oak table. “You're Trevor Philips!” Merle said, pointing a finger at him, suddenly shaking with anger. _My reputation precedes me_. Trevor didn't reply, though.

Louise's eyes moved over in Merle's direction. They narrowed as if she was working something out in her head, though they quickly widened again as soon as Merle grabbed a hold of her, wrapping his pudgy white arm around her front, pulling her backward into him. And that's when Trevor saw the knife that he extracted from his boot. A big, shiny, crooked hunting knife that he pressed to Louise's throat. “Take that fuckin' blade away from her throat,” Trevor snarled, his gun trained on Merle. He would have shot him right then, but he didn't want for Louise to get cut.

Merle's face was pink, his brow knitted in anger as he huffed and puffed through his nose. Johnny and Miles had taken their guns off of Trevor and pointed them at Merle. “You motherfucker. You kilt my cousins, you demented motherfucker!”

“Merle?” Louise squeaked, staring wide-eyed at Trevor.

“Shut up, Brenda, er, Louise...Whatever the fuck your name is!” he barked in her ear. She winced but tried to remain still.

“Why don't we all just calm down?” came Michael's voice from behind the rest. Miles and Merle, who was still clutching Louise tight against him, swiveled to look at Michael, who aimed at Merle. Johnny kept one eye on Trevor.

“Who the fuck is this, now?” Miles barked.

Michael's eyes traveled between each member of the menagerie before he landed on Louise. “Louise? You okay, kid?” he asked calmly.

“Umm...”

“What the fuck is it to you?!” yelled Merle through heaving breaths. “Who the fuck are you?!”

Michael fixed his expression into a stern one. “You don't want her,” he said calmly. “The guy you want is standing right over there,” Michael said, nodding toward Trevor. Normally, Michael's propensity for selling his friends down the river drove Trevor insane, but now it was coming in handy.

“That's right, _Merle,”_ Trevor confirmed. “You let Louise go and I'll make it worth your while. I'll put my gun down and you can slit me open navel to nose and make me watch while you play with my intestines right before my dying eyes!” Trevor was trying to make it sound enticing and he was about to launch into an even more detailed list of revenge scenarios to ply the fat little hick into turning his attentions on him when a shot rang out. The bullet narrowly missed Trevor and he looked up to see the swarthy little creep, Miles, aiming at him. And soon enough, Johnny was fixing to shoot at him too. Trevor crouched down and started a kind of crab walk sideways, away from their guns, looking for cover.

 

..........................................

 

And now, a firefight had started. And it was more than a little one-sided given Louise's proximity to the whole thing. Trevor wasn't returning fire yet. Michael looked to Merle and Louise, wanting desperately to take advantage of Merle's temporarily diverted attentions and get Louise free somehow, but he let the thought marinade a second too long, it would seem. Merle looked up to see Michael advancing upon them and pushed the blade of his hunting knife closer to Louise's throat.

“Oh no you don't, you city slickin' son of a bitch!” Merle said, spitting on the ground beside him for emphasis. He was faster than he looked. He quickly ascended the steps and pulled Louise backward and into the house through a limp section of painter's plastic.

Michael ran toward the house, and saw that Trevor had started to return fire on the two fuckers that had brought them here in the first place. He pushed through the plastic and looked around, becoming disoriented very quickly at the crooked walls and frames, many of which were draped in plastic. It was a maze. A badly constructed maze, but one that was most definitely serving that very purpose.

Michael weaved in and out of the lumber frames and opaque drapery, going deeper and deeper into the structure before he saw a pair of female legs being dragged into some unseen enclave down a narrow hallway. He ran toward it, calling out to make himself known.

“Listen, man, I don't want anyone to get hurt. I just want for you to let her go!” He heard the rustling of plastic before his cry was returned.

“It's a little fuckin' late for that now, slick!” Michael's stomach sank.

“Did you hurt her you hillbilly fuck?” cried Michael, standing still now.

He was met with muttering that echoed through the hollow house until it got to him. _Tell him you're fine,_ he thought he heard a voice say.

“Michael?” came Louise's quivering voice. “Louise,” he sighed, relieved.

“Louise, you still with me?”

More silence followed.

“Um...Yeah. I-” More muttering from Merle. “Merle wants you to stay back...”

Sometimes, when you get to know someone well enough, you get to know things that they can't _tell_ you the way you tell a story or a secret. Little cues that you pick up on the more you talk to them. And after a while, it gets to be so that little things like the pitch of someone's voice or the way that they phrase things tells you all you need to know without the other person having to say what they're thinking in explicit terms. This was one of those times. Louise's voice, the way she said it told him loud and clear that _she_ most certainly did not want for him to hang back.

“I hear ya, sweetheart!” Michael called back before he started making his way to them. He hustled down a hallway and hung a left into a room near the back exit and there he saw them. She had pulled away from Merle somehow, but he was clutching her wrist as she tried to wriggle away from him. Her hair was hanging in front of her face, obscuring it but he could hear her breathy whimpering, which propelled him into action. Merle only got to look his way for a split second before he took the shot. Put one right into his chest. Louise stumbled forward as the Merle let go, but quickly caught herself before she fell into the floor.

Merle fell backwards through the plastic of another non-wall behind him, meeting the floor with a loud thud. After a moment of assuring himself that the prick wasn't getting back up he looked at Louise who was breathing heavily, staring at the spot where Merle had been standing. She was trying a failing to push her hair out of her face, frazzled as she was.

Michael sighed, relieved as she looked up to him. He held his hand out to her. “Come on, kid, let's go,” he said as calmly as he could. Louise looked back toward where Merle had fallen and then back to Michael before she began to shuffle toward him. But she only made it two steps.

It was like something out of a horror movie, really. Another pair of arms emerged from behind the plastic, enveloping her and dragging her swiftly backward and out of Michael's sight. Michael heard her yelp and immediately ran through the makeshift wall. He looked left and right but saw nothing until, over the increasingly sparse gunfire outside, he heard more rumpling straight ahead. He ran toward the sound.

 

.................................

 

They had passed through at least three rooms before Louise was able to reclaim her wits, though only enough for her to realize that she had been seized by a pair of arms that she did _not_ want around her, that she was yet again being dragged backwards through this half-charred death trap. She couldn't even wriggle free since she didn't have the leverage; Her legs were continually being lifted off the ground, so she couldn't brace herself against the floor. She tried kicking, but that didn't work, either.

“Quit struggling, Louise,” a man's voice told her. It was Miles, she now realized.

“Get off of me!” she cried. She could hear Michael's voice calling after her but she didn't know where he was. The sound was carrying in the oddest way through this place.

“I said stop struggling,” Miles hissed into her ear.

“Where're you taking me let go of me get off let me go you fucking fucker!” Louise screamed back, unable to contain the string of demands or even string a comprehensible sentence together, so was the nature of her repulsion. She hated him. She hated the feeling of his body. She hated that he thought he owned her, that he could drag her off to wherever he pleased.

In the midst of her struggle, she thought of Trevor and Michael. Thought about them being in danger suddenly. It made her sick to her stomach. She wondered if this was part of some effort to get the two of them erased. She felt Miles place his clammy hand over her mouth and after her heavy breathing assuaged a bit, she could hear Michael more clearly, though now he sounded farther away. It was so dark now. She was disoriented. Even if she broke away from Miles, she wouldn't know where to go.

Miles dragged her farther and by this time, she was knackered. She didn't have much fight left in her bones. She had to acquiesce to Miles somewhat, though she was still trying to make it difficult for him. They kept moving through sheets and sheets of plastic, in and out of the skeletal wooden beams and after a moment, she felt the cold air on her skin, damp with sweat. She was practically horizontal now and she could see some stars fighting their way onto the darkening sky.

 

................................

 

Trevor had Johnny on his stomach now. As it happened, the doofus was a mediocre shot at best and once Trevor had realized that he'd exhausted his clip, he left cover and ran straight to him, bowling him over. He did have to say, however, that the big snaggle-toothed fuck was a formidable melee opponent when given a fair chance, so he'd had to get even scrappier than usual. After a couple of minutes, he had his boot planted firmly in Johnny's back.

“Alright, you fuckin' pinhead,” Trevor said through heavy breaths, wiping some perspiration off on the back of his sleeve. He sniffed. “Which way did your slippery little partner head, huh?”

Johnny stayed quiet in his defeat. Trevor got down and planted his knee in the middle of his back, grinding it in there hard, threatening to break ribs if he didn't get answers. “He headed in the house,” Johnny said through a strained breath.

“Why did you bring Louise here, huh?” Johnny coughed, a deep, gurgly, croupy cough that only subsided when Trevor brought his hand to the oaf's sweaty neck and placed his hand firmly under his chin.

“Miles wanted her to come along.”

“Why?” snarled Trevor.

“Fuck if I know. He's got a thing for her.”

Trevor felt a surge of rage surfacing. “And you just handed her over on a silver platter, John boy? Where the fuck do you get off?”

“I wasn't gonna let him hurt her. I don't wanna see her dishonored. I just wanted for him to shut his trap about it. So I told Louise that we'd leave my ma's house forever if she came with. That's it.” His demeanor remained placid, his tone even despite the fact that Trevor could have snapped his neck at any old time if given the chance.

Trevor lowered himself until he was in Johnny's ear. He was so close he could smell him. And he noted that John's smell was similar to Louise's. It was earthy like after a rain, but where Louise's smell was warm, John's had a hint of something acrid. Something bad. Something bred into him. A misstep of the natural order. Like he'd been taken by fever before he'd even been born.

Trevor had been put through the ringer. Pushed, pulled, pounded and broken. Built back up by badness and broken down again. He hadn't asked for it, but his disposition would have been mutable if there was a way to go back in time and rework his past, his mother's, his father's. To snuff out the legacy of wrongness before it had seeded itself. This one, though...Johnny was designed like this. Johnny was a true freak. The fuck didn't know any better. He didn't have an excuse because _he was the goddamn excuse_. And a damn good one. So good in fact that Trevor had, almost without thinking about it, decided to spare the fucker. Let nature run its zigzagging course in him.

“If you ever fuck with her again, cause her any pain...Hell, scratch that, any mild _inconvenience_ , I will bisect your head and use the top of your skull as a fucking cereal bowl, you understand?”

Johnny huffed softly through his nose and mouth simultaneously and looked up at Trevor through the side of his eye. His eyelid fluttered. _Good. They had an understanding._

Michael emerged from the house. “Trev, we've got a problem. I can't find Louise.”

“Miles got her,” Johnny said immediately. “She's with him somewhere.”

Trevor pulled himself up off of Johnny and looked at Michael. “What happened in there?” he said, surprised at his own calm in this moment.

“I clipped the redneck, but Miles pulled her away. I can't fuckin' find her and she ain't responding.”

“Miles is still lit from that speed he took earlier. Got that crank strength,” Johnny said. It sounded like a warning.

“So we go find her,” Trevor barked. “But first...”

Trevor turned and walked to where a bowling ball-sized rock lay a few feet away. He carried it to where Johnny lay. He planted his boot on Johnny's back, lifted the rock above his head and brought it down hard. Johnny yelled in pain as soon as the rock made impact, convincing Trevor finally that the big lug did, in fact, have a central nervous system.

 _“Jesus,_ T!” Michael yelled from the porch. “What the fuck did you do that for!”

Trevor heaved the rock off to the side and glanced briefly at Johnny's newly-mangled hands before he walked to where his gun lay in the grass, hoisting it over his shoulder. “Making sure this fuck's trigger fingers are out of commission. I can't babysit his ass, we have to go find Lou.”

 

...............................................

 

Louise and Miles stumbled around the property. Miles dragged a still-reluctant if not altogether non-compliant Louise behind him as he looked for a road out. The darkness was making it hard for either of them to see. Almost every square foot of the ground around the farm was littered with gopher holes and other unseen obstacles of every size and material. Excavated rocks, steel scraps, rebar jutting out of the ground. The coyotes were sounding off in the distance but the shooting had subsided.

“Please let me go, Miles,” Louise said, suddenly regaining her ability to form a coherent thought.

“No.” Louise sighed, exasperated. “You don't even know where you're going!”

“You're coming with.”

“Where?” she yelled.

He turned toward her and squeezed her face hard. “Keep your fucking voice down.”

She shoved his hand off of her face. It smarted from his rough touch. “Why are you doing this?” Miles was gasping, seething at her through gritted teeth.

“Because you wouldn't come quietly, Louise,” he spat.

“Come where? What did you do to Trevor?”

The mention of Trevor pissed him off. He shoved her backward into a stack of tires and advanced on her. “What, your dickless boyfriend back there? I'm sure Johnny took him out by now.” There's no way he could have understood how wrong he most likely was about that.

“Look,” Louise said holding up her hands. “You can still get out of here but I'm of no use to you now, so if you just go-”

Miles cut her off with a harsh laugh. A laugh that was completely soaked in cruelty and apathy. It startled her. She wanted to run but he was still armed. Even so, her eyes darted around looking for a clear escape route. “Goddammit, Louise, don't you get it? I brought you here because you and I are going to take this,” he said, suddenly extracting the meth parcel from some mysterious black hole in his jacket, “and we're going to get out of San Andreas and sell the shit out of it until we have a nest egg.”

 _Christ._ He was even more deluded than she could have ever imagined. It wasn't puppy love or some twisted little crush or dampened obsession that ebbed and flowed throughout the years and across the miles.

Louise couldn't help it. She was laughing now, most likely due to the profound stress that she was under at the moment, but also because what he was saying was ludicrous. Had he forgotten who was in front of him? “There is no _you and I_ , Miles. I'm not going any fucking place with you and if you think so then you're even more fucked in the head than I thought!” she yelled at him.

Miles grabbed her by the throat. He shoved her back into the tires again, his bony hand colliding with her esophagus, sending her into a coughing fit that was quickly stifled by his grip tightening over her neck. “Laugh at me again, Louise. Laugh and see what happens!” he growled at her.

She only stared into his face for another second before she decided that she very much enjoyed breathing. She kneed him hard in the crotch, which sent him into a coughing fit that matched her own. She took advantage of his temporarily incapacitated state and pulled the gun from his hand before kicking him in the shoulder. It wasn't a hard kick, mind you. Her legs were practically Jello, after but it was enough to send him stumbling backward, down the hill a bit. He staggered, trying to get his balance back but he quickly found a steep grade that had been cloaked in darkness and disappeared down it, headfirst.

Louise heard him yelp before he let out a raucous screech. She froze and looked around for an escape route, but if Miles' little tumble proved anything, it was that this place was way too treacherous to navigate quickly. He kept screeching and now it sounded like he was sobbing. Louise turned and tossed the gun into the center of the tire stack and knelt down, pulling a piece of rebar out of the ground. It was less fuss, she decided. She slowly followed the sound of his cries, gingerly switchbacking down the grade until she found him on the ground in a heap at the foot of a mid-sized piece of farming equipment. A pulverizer. He was facing it, gripping his leg, still squealing.

It was still dark, but there was enough light from off in the distance for Louise to make out what it was that was making him emit those awful noises. He had landed on a spike jutting out from the ground tiller of the farming implement. A spike that was sticking clear through his thigh. Louise felt her already weak legs falter even more at the sight but she sucked in a deep breath and moved closer.

“Miles-”

“Aauugggghhhhhhh!”

“Miles-”

“Aaaaaaaaauuuuuuuugggggghhhhhh!”

She briskly moved to him and covered his mouth with her hand. She felt his screams reverberating across her palm as she assessed the damage. It looked as though the spike had gone through just a little bit above the knee.

“Miles, I'm going to take my hand off your mouth but you have to try and quit screaming,” she demanded. Either he hadn't heard her or he was incapable of following her instructions just then. “I think it missed your femoral artery, so what we should do is get your leg off that spike so that I can apply a tourniquet,” she said trying to sound calm and professional.

In fact, her medical knowledge was quite limited and for all she knew her plan could have sealed his doom. Besides extracting bullets under the tutelage of a retired nurse via video chat, her only training had been the compulsory first aid training that she'd received before she started working in schools and it had been a while since she'd had any practice. Plus, she couldn't remember if her training had covered anything like this.

It didn't matter, though, because he wasn't going to quit screaming. She didn't feel like leaving him do die a slow, merciless death no matter how much of a bastard he had been to her and she didn't feel like putting a bullet in his head, either. So she let go of his mouth, screaming be damned, and as quick as she could, yanked at the bottom of her dress with her teeth until she made a slit big enough to pull from. In one quick motion, she pulled a strip of fabric from the bottom of her dress.

She stuck it in her mouth and crouched down next to him. His screams had started to allay somewhat, though it was still an awful guttural sound escaping him now. “I gotta pull your leg off the spike now,” she said, sounding half apologetic.

She braced her hands on the side of his leg and took a deep breath. She looked at the sky and relayed a silent, a-religious incantation to the stars before she lifted upward. His screams reached yet another fevered crescendo as she did so. The splitting pain in her ears from his screams did little to distract her from the feeling of his sinews and tissues being dragged up the length of that rusty steel. But she did it as quickly as she could against the rigidness of his leg, against the sounds of his agony, and against her own nausea at her task.

When his leg was free, she swiveled him ninety degrees and quickly tied the strip of fabric around his leg. For the third time inside of a month, she had another person's blood on her hands. For the second time inside of a couple weeks, it was because she was trying to save the man to whom the blood belonged. Two out of three wasn't bad, right?

She fell back on her ass and looked at Miles, who was turning white as he wheezed and groaned. She held her hands out away from her body, suddenly acutely aware of the stickiness and warmth of his blood on them. She needed to strategize. To find a way to get him out of there, she decided. And then, as if her a-religious prayers were being answered, she heard the voices, saw the lights.

She could hear Trevor and Michael calling to her intermittently. She saw a flashlight beam being pointed her way. She squinted and raised her hand to her face to shield it from the harsh LED beam in her eyes. They had found her. And only a moment later, they were there at her side.

Trevor started in immediately when he saw the blood on her hands. He got down in the dirt next to her and grabbed her face and her arms and he studied her all over.

 _“What the fuck,”_ he growled, thumbing the frayed hem of her skirt.

“No, n-n-no,” Louise said ardently shaking her head.

“T,” Michael interjected. He flashed the light at Miles' leg.

“He fell on the tresher,” Louise said. “I had to-” She looked down at her skirt and shook her head. “It's okay.”

Trevor grabbed her face and pressed his into the side of it. She felt the hard nub of his nose sticking into her soft cheek. She grasped his forearm as she looked up at Michael. His mouth was fixed in a hard line but his eyes were soft.

Miles had fallen silent, though now he was decidedly more pale and shaking like a leaf. Louise turned to him. “Miles needs medical attention,” she said, noting the detachment in her voice. Trevor sighed. He obviously wasn't terribly keen on helping the latest in an impressive line of kidnappers and she would be remiss not to admit to herself that it was unorthodox. But her hands were sticky with his blood. She needed to justify her efforts and moreover, she felt like she needed to pare down the amount of untimely deaths in her purview.

“Fine. Mikey, you feel like helping me schlep this fucker back to the house?”

 

...................................

 

Trevor stood on his porch listening to coyotes off in the distance singing their tortured (or delighted) songs interspersed with the occasional buzz of distant traffic, which was growing exceedingly thinner as the minutes passed. He was too restless to sleep.

Back at the O'Neil farm, he'd sent Johnny and Miles on their way in their truck, giving them directions to the nearest medical center, instructing Miles to steer while Johnny worked the pedals. He'd only been half joking about it. Louise had fallen asleep in his lap on the way back to his, sleeping through the bumps in the dirt roads, through a brief but lively exchange with Franklin. And now she was showering the blood and perspiration from her body, limp with exhaustion.

Trevor wasn't letting his mind veer too far in any particular direction, instead opting to do something he rarely did, which was to just be for a minute, hence the listening exercise. Still, he couldn't put down the occasional vexing image of Louise covered in blood or standing in a hail of bullets or struggling to get out of the arms of some nameless, faceless specter. Right back where they'd started. The way he figured, the ratio of events in Louise's life over which she'd had some say in whose hands were on her to those where she was voiceless and at the mercy of whomever decided that they were entitled to her was still dismal. It made him sad to think about it.

In the midst of his internal lament, Louise emerged and joined him at his side, following his eyes out into the dark. And then, seemingly having her fill of the abyss, she looked up at him and smiled a thin but warm smile. It cleared his head straight away. Her hair was damp and she wore only a towel but she looked far more comfortable in her skin than he felt in his.

“I'm sorry,” she said quietly and apropos of nothing.

“Huh?” he asked, genuinely confounded at the apology.

“I'm-” she she started, sighing and laughing at the same time. She shook her head before she straightened her face. “I'm sorry we fought.”

Trevor searched his mind for what she meant, realizing only after a moment that she must have been referring to the last time that they were in one another's presence.

“We squashed that. With phone sex.” And now she stared at him with an open-mouthed expression that was almost blank but had something oh so subtle behind it. Something mean? No...

“That was for running out on you.”

“That was the problem-”

“Not for...making you think I didn't want you the way you are.”

“Oh.”

“Because I do.”

“Hm?” Louise kept her eyes on him as she let a muted sigh of agitation pass her lips. “Oh,” Trevor repeated, backtracking through the conversation before he understood what she was telling him. And like every other time she had tried (or had accidentally done) breaking through that membrane of self-loathing and disbelief that smothered him always, every time she made some startling declaration to him that made him wonder if he was hallucinating, his heart rattled in his chest. The only difference now was that, instead of immediately trying to hone in on some imperfection of hers to soften the projected hurt of having it taken away, he just let it be. Let himself be. And she was the same now. Maybe better. “I want you, too, Lou.”

A smile flickered across her face. She wrapped her arms around him.

“I broke Johnny's hands,” Trevor said in between kisses.

“I saw,” Louise replied, planting another on him. She stroked his cheek with her thumb as she kissed him over and over.

“I dunno what we're doing,” he said, lacing her hair around his fingers, as he dive bombed her mouth again.

“Give it a minute,” she whispered back.

The crickets had started chirping, barely audible through their breathing, just a little bit heavier than usual. “How are we gonna do this?” he asked halfheartedly.

She broke away then, still clutching his head. She grinned and shrugged. “We'll find a way,” she said softly. And he found himself believing her, somehow. Her grin faded then, though her eyes were still shining. “I'm not letting you go again.”

“Good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew. If you have any suggestions on how to break up the chapter for later readers, do let me know. As always comments are appreciated <3


	16. Chapter 16

Franklin was keeping one eye on the street, hoping to fuck nobody he knew would see him. He looked to his side giving quick, quiet thanks to the ether that Louise was wearing gray instead of purple or green. She wasn't flagging, so that might keep the attentions of any potential enemies (or friends) safely off of him and his weird white lady companion.

He watched Louise intently as the brick school building whizzed past her and then the basketball court, the top of a power station building. And then all the same stuff again in reverse. She was staring at him with a coldness that was disproportional to the lightheartedness of their activity.

“I'm smaller than you. I'll go way farther,” she warned, kicking her shoes off into the sand. The centrifugal force sent them hard into the sand under her, each with a muted _plonk._

“I'm goin' higher than you, though,” he replied, panting lightly.

She laughed at him mockingly. “So when you let go of the swing, you'll go vertical and _I'll_ win.”

“Damn, girl, I ain't never seen your competitive side.”

Louise responded with a bright smile. “You shouldn't have bet me that you could go farther. I never let boys beat me.”

“Until today,” he shot back. “Get ready to buy me that drink.”

“Count of three. One...Two...” she said giddily, flashing him another bright smile, one that he returned, albeit much more wryly. “Three!”

The pair of them let go of their swings simultaneously. Franklin felt his innards protesting the sudden emergence of this new face of gravity, desperately trying to pull him downward though the air was harnessing his weight now. For a split second. Before he and Louise each landed in the sand which gave a satisfying _swish_ sound under their feet.

They stood still for a second, reclaiming their balance before they looked at one another with gratified smiles. Louise looked down at their feet, carefully eyeballing the difference in their foot positions. “Wow. A tie.”

“Bullshit. My toes are farther ahead than yours. Look,” he said pointing.

“Because your feet are bigger,” she protested. “Our heels are plum and even. It's a tie.”

Franklin snorted. “Whatever.”

Louise walked back to the swings, stopping where her shoes had landed. “Well, if you _really need_ for me to buy you that drink, I'd be happy to,” she said, slipping her shoes on. “I'm feeling generous today.”

“Pfft. You wasn't feelin' so generous when you goaded me into gettin' on a fuckin' _swingset.”_

Louise walked toward him, rubbing her hands together to brush off some stray sand grains. “Yeah,” she said, putting her hand on her hip. “I shouldn't have done that. You probably looked pretty stupid from the sidewalk,” she jabbed.

“Fuck it. Let's go. Quit while you ahead,” he snarled. “I still gotta come back to this neighborhood sometimes, ya know.”

Louise laughed as she joined him at his side and they started walking toward his car. “You had fun,” she sing-songed, shoving into him with her shoulder. “It's nice to wake your inner child up sometimes.”

“Yeah, well next time you wanna _wake our inner children_ , we can do it in your hunting grounds, a'ight?”

“As you wish, Franklin.”

He couldn't really say why he had let her talk him into _that_ during their leisurely afternoon drive. She'd simply told him to pull over and started walking toward the playground, so she'd had the element of surprise on her side. And since she was just a little out of place in this part of town, he felt compelled to follow her if only to temper the weirdness of her presence here. As for why he got on the swing when she had ordered him to...Shit, it was anyone's guess. Maybe he felt like she was owed.

Louise walked to the passenger side while Franklin reached into his pocket to retrieve his keys. He was about to unlock the door when he stopped. He looked over the top of the car at Louise, who seemed to be staring at her feet. After a minute of idleness, she looked up at him. “What's up?” she asked.

“You remember that message I sent you? The night of when we picked you up at the bank?”

Louise raised an eyebrow at him. _“Picked me up?”_

Franklin ignored the tone. “You remember the message?”

“Er, yeah?” she said, scratching the back of her head.

“'You are good when you walk to your goal firmly and with bold steps. Yet you are not evil when you go thither limping.'” Louise stared back at him intently as he recited the message, straightening up and folding her arms on top of the car. “'Even those who limp go not backward. But you who are strong and swift, see that you do not limp before the lame, deeming it kindness.'”

That night, when he'd been seething that she had dared _exist_ inside of the bank that they were robbing, he had thought carefully about how to approach the whole thing. The fact that she had been there against unfathomable odds had indeed angered him. It made him feel like he was occupying a special kind of hell; that in all the time they had known her, she had secretly been some kind of sentinel sent to them from somewhere on high to remind them of all their sins. Human porcelain that they were being forced to lug around with them through bullet storms and into those dark places where their opponents and peers would catch sight of her and try to break her open to see if there was something for them inside. He'd resented her for it. Until he'd gotten a chance to talk to her long enough to remember that she was just a person. A person with uncanny fuckin' timing and fickle fuckin' fortune.

“Why are you bringing this up now, Frank?” she asked. She didn't sound agitated but truly inquisitive when she asked.

Franklin looked out at the street, probing his mind for what he wanted to ask her. “After everything that's happened...I mean...Where do you land on all that?” Louise cocked her head at him, still wearing her curious expression. “What I'm askin' is...Do you feel like...I dunno, like you compromised? Like you sank down to our level when you chose us? Me and Michael and Trevor? _Especially_ Trevor?”

Louise sighed as her eyes darted around. She didn't look alarmed, though. Franklin thought now that he might actually get an honest answer. After a moment she looked up at him. “'And let your best be for your friend. If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also.'”

Franklin knitted his brow as he chewed on those words. “Er...”

“I didn't have to sink, Frank. That's not what friendship is about. The crazy things I did for you and Michael and Trevor wasn't me _falling from grace_ or something.” She drew in a deep breath and looked off in the distance. “I'm not saying that it was right but I did it because of what you all mean to me. That's gotta count for something.”

Franklin shifted on his feet. “So...”

Louise looked back at him. Hard this time, though not cruel. “So you weren't the only one that was reading _Kahlil Gibran_ while we were apart.”

_Damn._

“Right.”

She smiled at him warmly and, speaking softly she said “I owe you a drink. Let's go.”

 

............................

 

Louise hoisted the banker's box full of her personal effects higher on her hip as she and Michael strolled through the parking lot of Richard's Majestic. She stared at the travel brochure that he had handed her. A picture of a cerulean ocean and white sand under a huge blue sky. The pair stopped at her car and she set the box down on the hood while Michael lit a cigarette. She leafed through the brochure, sitting on the hood now. _Fijian Escape._

“Six days and seven nights, all inclusive, satisfaction guaranteed,” he said.

Louise realized now that he'd probably memorized the entire thing since he'd booked his family trip to the island nation of Fiji. She smiled up at him as the perused the pages. “Oooh, are you gonna scuba dive?” she asked teasingly.

He quickly blew out a plume of smoke through a faint laugh. “Louise, if you knew how many times I've squeezed myself into neoprene for _work_ , you'd know that scuba diving is _not_ my cup of tea.”

She laughed at him. “So you're gonna lay around an impoverished country with cucumber slices over your eyeholes instead of taking in the natural beauty? Remind me never to go anywhere with you...”

“No, that's more Amanda's bag. I'm going to lay around an impoverished country and sip adult beverages while I watch my family gallivant around a white sand beach.”

“Good for you,” she said, handing the brochure back to him. 

“What about you?” he asked.

“What about me?”

He gestured to the box on the hood. “What are you going to do with your time off?”

Louise inhaled sharply through her nose as she looked up at the gauche building that housed the offices of Richard's Majestic. “I'm going to figure out what I want to do. I might come back here or I might try and find a more satisfying way to spend my working life. I have options.”

“Such as?” he asked taking another drag of his cigarette.

“Well, I really like doing the art therapy stuff and I got a soft offer to go around to some state hospitals and rehab facilities and teach people the power of creative expression on a contract basis.”

“You gonna take it?” Michael asked, his eyes lighting up.

“I'm leaning that way.”

“Good,” he nodded. They were quiet for a minute. The sun was starting to set. Michael looked at her as though he wanted to speak but his mouth didn't move.

“What?” Louise inquired.

“How about the Trevor thing?” Louise laughed.

“Ah, the Trevor thing...”

“Yeah, the living arrangement. How is that working out?”

“Pretty much the same as before except now there's no self-imposed restraining orders to keep me away from the likes of you,” she said, poking him in the chest with her index finger.

“Or him.”

“That's right.”

“So, what? Now it's cookouts and day tripping and all the other normal human activities?”

“If you want. Or it's the lot of us saving each other's asses when the occasion calls for it.”

“I'll take the former,” Michael said firmly.

“You got it.”

“I'm serious.”

“Me too. When you get back from your Fijian Escape, we can go to the Pier or something. Watch Trevor leer at the beach-goers and see how long it takes before we have to outrun the cops, yeah?”

“It's a date!”

It was then that an awkward silence fell over them. Michael seemed to notice it first, idly flicking his cigarette while he looked off into the sunset. Louise quickly followed his example, first running her thumb over her chin and then scooping out bits of cardboard from the top of the banker's box with her fingernail. Michael shifted and then looked over at her, opening his mouth to say something, stopping himself at the last minute. His words were escaping him again. Louise simply smiled and hummed a quiet little laugh through her nose. She imagined them suddenly as a couple of teenagers, standing outside her house after a first date. She looked down at her feet.

“This ain't... _normal_ is it?” Michael asked then.

Louise felt a smile cross her lips. “Naw.”

“It's never going to be normal,” he said, shaking his head incredulously.

Louise felt the awkwardness dissipate as she stepped in front of him. She pulled the cigarette from his mouth and flicked it across the lot. Michael's eyes followed it before he looked at her again. “Is that what you want, Michael? _Normalcy?”_ Louise countered in an almost-mocking tone.

Michael considered this for a minute before he smiled back at her. “I dunno. I guess not. I used to think so but now...” he began, standing up, taking Louise's hand in his. “Now I see that you were right. Normal ain't for us. Never was, never will be.”

Louise squeezed his hand. “I can live with that, I think,” she said softly. “Me too,” he said.

He leaned in and gave her a light kiss on the temple before letting go and dusting off his suit jacket. He began to walk toward his car. He turned around on his heel to face her again. “I'll be back in ten days. In my absence, if Trevor gets out of line, Franklin will be acting as my, uh...delegate, so drop him a line if need be...”

Louise guffawed. “Right,” she said picking up her banker's box. She and Michael kept their eyes on each other as she made her way to her driver's side door. “What if I get out of line?”

“Then you're on your own. Just make sure there's no heavy weaponry involved.”

“Cool.”

“Be good, kid,” Michael said with a wink, getting into his car.

After he drove away, Louise got into her car and started the engine. She was about to put the car in gear when she hesitated. She realized suddenly that she hadn't let herself fully grasp the ridiculousness of the whole arrangement until just now. Here in her car, it bowled her over suddenly.

She pondered it for a moment, suddenly feeling an overwhelming need to retrace her steps over the past year plus. To make a Venn diagram in her head, though she knew that by now that the world in which she had once existed had intersected theirs so fluidly, her circle encroaching on theirs (or theirs on hers, she didn't know which) so much that now the two were indistinguishable. She leaned her head back and sighed, brushing the thought away, denying passage to the absolute _headfuck_ that untying those knots would be. She put her car and gear and headed off for Blaine County.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The passages recited by Louise and Franklin during their exchange were from Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet, which I do not own but love intensely. Thanks for reading. I'll be posting the last chapter very shortly ;)


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so we have come to the end. I hope that this final chapter finds you all well and that you enjoy it thoroughly!

Trevor was making a game of dodging the enormous clumps of dog hair flying in his face as he brushed out the big, dopey, panting German-shepherd-mixed-with-fuck-knows-what-else before him. He didn't bother to bag the fruits of his labor as Louise had instructed, opting instead to let the big furry clumps litter the yard in front of the trailer. She wouldn't be terribly pleased that the yard that she had spent the last week straightening up was now full of fluffy landmines, but hey, she'd given him a task to perform and he had every intention of completing it to her partial satisfaction. _The smell of the fur will keep the coyotes away from the garbage_ , he told himself (and he would say the same to her if she decided to raise hell about it). Hey, at least the dog was enjoying it. Plus, she shouldn't have insisted on bringing the little fucker home if she was averse to his coat sloughing off here and there.

The sun was starting to sink behind the mountains, subduing the oppressive heat that had been smothering Sandy Shores all day, causing both Trevor and his canine companion to languish in twin states of dozy lethargy.

Trevor hadn't been terribly keen on the dog situation initially. Many months ago, Trevor had taken Louise to the scrap yard so that she could gather building materials for a metal helicopter sculpture that she wanted to erect in his yard as a gift to him (though he suspected that she was actually itching to put her newfound welding skills to work, silly maven that she was. Fuckin' extended learning classes and that).

They weren't in that scrap yard for ten minutes before he heard Louise shriek. Being the vigilant son of a bitch that he was, he immediately reached for the gun that he kept in the glove compartment. _Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God,_ came her squeals in rapid succession as he ran to see what was wrong. But instead of being met by the sight of Louise in a compromising position with some hophead with a broken bottle at her throat, he found Louise with a fat-bellied puppy in her arms, licking her face off while she shrieked with delight.

“Oh, fuck,” he had blurted out.

She advanced upon him with a mega-watt smile, wielding the puppy at him. “It's a baby dog!”

“Yeah, I see that,” he had spat. “You almost gave me a fuckin' heart attack, ya know?”

She just ignored him, trying to drag his latent affection for the dog out of him, first by pretending that the puppy was a gun, making a ridiculous laser sound as she “shot” at her stone-faced lover. When that didn't work, she shoved the puppy in Trevor's face and let the dog have at him. Sure, in that moment, he had desperately wanted to pry the dog from her arms, toss her in the passenger seat and gun it toward home. But when he saw how fucking _overjoyed_ she was at her discovery, he knew that the little mutt would be coming home with them and there wasn't a fucking thing that he could do about it.

Trevor and Tank had a strained relationship at best in those first few weeks. But soon, he saw that the dog was, not unlike himself, quite advanced and he grew entirely too fond of him in the successive days. Especially after he taught him to relieve himself in Ron's yard instead of theirs.

“There we go, Tankers. All groomed. Now your insides won't boil when we put on your day-glo vest so those trigger happy hillbilly fucks don't think you're a coyote,” Trevor crooned at the dog as he cracked open a beer.

A moment later, Louise pulled up and Tank's attentions were immediately ripped from Trevor as the he bounded over the fence to greet her. She set a bag of groceries on top of the car and disappeared from Trevor's sight, but he could hear her cooing at the dog. He waited patiently while they got that out of the way.

“Hello,” she said, striding up to him with the dog at her heels, holding the groceries in one of her hands. She planted a kiss on his mouth, before grimacing and spitting out some stray furs and brushing them away from her lips. She walked toward the trailer, paying no mind to the fur that littered the yard. _Nice,_ thought Trevor.

“How was your day?” he asked. “Meet the next _Picasso_ at the Blaine County Center for Derelict Souls?”

Louise shot him an acerbic smile as she set her bag on the counter. “No, but I _did_ teach a nineteen-year-old pyromaniac how to use egg tempera, so I'm calling that one a win for the week.”

“Your work week is only three days long,” he said, sounding a little accusatory as he pointed the neck of his beer at her.

She walked to where he was standing and took the beer from his hand, taking a long slug of it before handing it back to him. “So you can appreciate why I haven't worked many miracles, my love.” She smiled at him as she wrapped her arms around his waist and gazed up at him. He never got sick of how she looked at him and, while he would never admit it to her, the little gestures of tenderness still made his stomach go all funny. He ran his fingers through her hair as he returned the look.

“How 'bout you, how was your day?” she asked.

“I brushed the dog.”

“I noticed. He looks much less mangy than he did at seven this morning.”

“I'm thinking about opening a doggy salon. Mutt Cuts by Trevor,” he said. That remark drew a hearty belly-laugh from Louise that tapered off into a bubbly giggle which, again, made his heart beat a little faster.

Life here had been kind. Perhaps merciful was a better word, actually. It was like pulling teeth to get Louise to agree to come out this way for real and for true, but she had eventually brushed her fear of relocation or commitment or whatever aside and caved to Trevor's repeated requests that she live at his with him. Where he could protect and have regular access to her.

The trailer itself had undergone very few changes in her time with him. Except that it was cleaner and more orderly. And she'd brought a comfier sofa with her. And she'd replaced the bedding (which Trevor suspected was due to the fact that his bedding had been sullied by the presence of other women), turning his pink comforter into a bed for Tank dog.

Every minute change that they made to the place seemed to bring more contentment and surety that they could make their beautifully fucked up union work. Louise herself had been pleasantly surprised that Trevor had been so amenable to those changes, small as they were. Trevor didn't see why it came as a surprise to her that he would accommodate them. After all, it meant that she was in his bed every night. Why the hell would he have a stick up his ass at her propensity for cleaning and changing the sheets?

 

..............................

 

“Gooboy, Tankers!” Trevor crowed from the porch where he stood wrapped in a towel after showering off the stray dog hairs that had stuck to his skin. He watched as the dog kicked his legs, flinging dirt backward after dropping a bomb in Ron's yard. Luckily, Louise had not grown wise to the practice. She would squelch is straight away as soon as she found out, which Trevor knew would be before too long.

The dog padded up the steps and trotted into the trailer, eschewing his dog bed in favor of a sleeping spot on the sofa. The little fucker was out like a light in under ten seconds. Trevor walked into the bedroom and shut the door behind him. Louise sat on the bed, legs hanging over the side. She was hunched over a book, twirling a strand of hair around her finger and absently rubbing her feet together as she mouthed words that she was reading. She looked picture perfect by the light of the bedside lamp. As per his wont, Trevor decided to shatter that perfection. He stirred her from her quiet reading by slamming his body down on the bed next to her. The book slid out of her hands and onto the floor.

She turned her head slowly and looked at him wearily. “You couldn't have let me save my place first?”

“Sorry,” he lied.

“You showered,” she said flatly.

“Yeah. I plugged the shower drain with dog hair, though.”

“Mmm,” she said, leaning back on one of her hands and stroking his forehead with the other.

He looked up at her, searching her face for a clue as to what she was thinking just then. This would be one of those times where he stared at her really close and tried to summon every minute that they had spent together since they had met to his memory. It was strange. Most people's faces change as you get to know them. Familiarity seems to morph their features into something other than what you see when you first lay eyes on them. But with Lou, he could look at her a thousand times and she still looked the way she had when he first laid eyes on her.

The closest Trevor Philips came to meditating was in these moments. He'd stare at some feature of hers and not think of anything else. Sometimes it was her black hair, other times it was her freckles or her full mouth. Most of the time, though, it was her eyes. Wide green pools that betrayed her sincerity every time he got all riled up and let some doubt creep into his mind about who she was and what she was doing with him.

After a period of silence he crawled up to lay on the bed properly. “So what were you reading anywa-” he began before he felt her smash her mouth into his. He moaned into her mouth before he placed his hands on her hips. He immediately began moving them up and down, pulling at her hungrily. And she only put up a moment's resistance before she let him pull her body into his, snaking her hand under the towel he wore and running her nails up the inside of his thigh.

 

................................

 

You can never truly _have_ a person. Louise knew this from the time she was a child. It was one of those bits of arcane knowledge that she held onto every time someone got a little too close or when she herself became enamored with someone. Every time she wanted to feel free or when she became terrified that she was going to have something, or rather someone, ripped away from her. Because for some reason, it always hurt more to have a thing or a person taken away when you only wanted them.

It had happened plenty of times. A substitute teacher, a stray dog, a massive heart-shaped boulder by the side of the road. She prided herself on that understanding because she made a mantra of it. You cannot have someone even if they want to give themselves to you. And now here she was with someone who, if it could ever _truly_ be said of any living soul on this plane, could not be harnessed. That was perhaps the strangest part of loving him.

A close second was the fact that he still scared her. Not in the way a pamphlet or infographic at a women's shelter might warn you of, though. He scared her on a level that was so base and primal but also wholly cerebral that nobody could touch it with practical advice. The moments where she thought she truly know him were like hidden caverns across a desolate and pretty landscape. Even though she knew what he sounded like when he snored and she knew where to touch him and how to move her hips to sap his normal brain functioning, she could still get lost in his face forever trying to figure him out. And that's what she was looking forward to when she finally agreed to give this cohabitation thing a shot. It could be an agonizing exercise but it fed her in a way that she could spend forever defending.

They lay next to each other naked and sweaty, their gasping becoming quieter with the passing minutes. Louise rolled her ankles around, trying to get the feeling to return to her toes. Trevor's face was buried in her shoulder. She rolled her head to the side to look at him.

 _“Marathon,”_ he said through his delirium.

“Marathon,” Louise repeated back to him.

“Fucktastic voyage.” Louise met that comment with a throaty laugh. He put his arm across her ribs and smashed his face into her flesh, planting a rough kiss on her shoulder. “Happy?”

“Happy,” she said.

He groaned in protest when she rolled over onto her stomach. “I was comfortable,” he whined.

“You can't fall asleep like that. You'll hurt your neck.”

His face twitched with agitation before he yanked a pillow under his head. She put his grumbling to rest by laying her head on his chest. His eyes were closed now.

“I love you, Lou.”

“I love you too, Trev.”

 

......................................

 

_“You really thought a mountain lion got me?”_

_Trevor bristled at the sing-song lilt in Louise's voice. She was grating on him again as she had been since Michael had left them alone in that motel. He'd be lying if it wasn't fun once in awhile (and that he hadn't done the same to her) but he wasn't going to let that translate into patience at her impish whimsy bullshit right now. Because **yes** , he had let the thought cross his mind that something might have gotten her out in those woods and the very fact that he was letting it **bother** him so much was giving him a headache. The only vestige of self-recognition that he had at his disposal back there was that he'd copped a good feel of her ass when he was helping her down from the tree. Which almost made the whole thing worth it. **Almost.**_

_“Yeah, I did,” he said glaring at her from behind the steering wheel. “And now that I know that you can't behave yourself, I'm not letting you out of the motel room. **And** you have to pee with the bathroom door open from now on.” _

_“Well, you broke the door off the hinges so I've kinda gotten used to that.”_

_Trevor groaned in response. Louise just laughed at his growing agitation. She had grown weirdly comfortable with him in the last few days. That fact on its own was enough to convince him that she was nuts without her deliberately fucking with him. Surely she had to have gotten an idea of who she was fucking with by now._

_“So, you were worried about me,” she said having dropped the playful tone._

_“Yeah, what of it?” he shot back. He chanced a look in her direction._

_She had one of those far away looks in her eyes as she tried to hide her smile. The wind was blowing her hair around erratically. “I dunno. It's kinda sweet is all.”_

_Trevor guffawed. “Sweet? Me? You're deluded, Lou.”_

_“Naw,” she said, drawing it out._

_“I was only worried about what kind of hell Michael would give me if I let you get maimed in his absence.”_

_The silence that followed unnerved him and he looked over at her direction. She was studying him with her wide green eyes, looking a little hurt by his comment. “Really?”_

_“Yep.”_

_“Oh,” she said, turning away from him. They rode in silence for a little while. Trevor looked at her a bunch of times, enough to see that the far away look had returned but there was no smile behind it this time._

_He cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. “Er...I dunno, I guess I didn't want anything to happen to ya,” he said in a low voice, half-way hoping that he had said it without her hearing. She hummed in response but her face was still blank. “Ergh, fine, fuck! I was worried about you okay!” he admitted through gritted teeth._

_Louise was looking at him again, staring at him with a bored expression before she blew some hair out of her face without letting go of his gaze. She turned away and it was then that he saw her blushing. **Nice bluff, Lou,** he thought to himself. He felt a little victorious just then, in spite of his brash internal dialogue. _

_They arrived in the motel parking lot a moment later, pulling right up to room number 119. Trevor cut the engine and turned to Louise. “You ain't gonna pout all fuckin' night, are you?”_

_Louise glared at him hard for a second before her eyes softened. She almost looked alarmed but then she smiled coyly at him and got onto one of her knees in her seat. She leaned over toward him and he braced himself for...well, he didn't know what. She took her index finger and brushed it lightly under his eye before she held it out in front of his face. “Make a wish,” she said._

_He narrowed his eyes at her before he looked at her finger to see one a tiny hair on the tip of it. An eyelash. “Huh?”_

_“Make a wish and blow.”_

_“Er, okay? I **wish** you'd **blow** me,” he snarled. Louise didn't hesitate before she punched him good in the bicep with her free hand. “Ow!”_

_“You're not supposed to say it out loud. Now you can't use that one. Try again.”_

_Trevor rubbed his arm and bit his lip, more than a little turned on by the steely look in her eye as she raised her eyebrows expectantly. As he looked at her, his feelings of arousal were pruned away slowly by something else. A kind of buoyant feeling in his chest. A weightlessness._

_Louise smiled as he blew the lash off her finger. “I hope it was good,” she said, retracting her hand._

_“It was,” he said, not taking his eyes off of her. He watched her catch sight of something in his look but the one she wore was unreadable as she backed up and got out of the truck. And then he watched her steal a quick look back at him as she walked slowly to the door to the room where she stopped and waited for him._

_**I hope it works,** he thought. He got out of the truck and followed her._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there it is. I hope that it was a satisfying ending for all you gorgeous fan boys and girls. Thank you so much for all the encouragement and your general awesomeness. It is truly appreciated. I might right a MichaelxOC fic next if I have it in me. Who knows? Until next time, I look forward to reading all of your fanworks. Stay rad <3


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